Topic: Bitcoin Gold to Release Cryptocurrency Sunday (Read 186 times)

In a new blog post, those behind a yet-to-be-officially-released fork of the bitcoin blockchain said that they would release the bitcoin gold client for download at 7:00 PM UTC on Nov. 12.

Originally set for a public launch on Nov. 1, the project is backed LightningASIC, a seller of mining hardware based in Hong Kong, as well as a broader open-source community of relatively unknown developers. The idea behind bitcoin gold, according to its supporters, is to restrict the use of specialized chips for mining, or the process by which new transactions are added to a blockchain (while also creating new tokens as a reward).

It's also the latest example of an airdropped cryptocurrency that shares a transaction history with the primary bitcoin network – that is up, up until the date the ledger of transactions starts to differ. Yet in a move criticized by some observers, the team behind bitcoin gold has been mining blocks in insolation since the new network formally began last month, with that "premined" amount of coins being set aside to support development.

"We are extremely grateful for the community around the world who have been contributing hash power to our testnets; besides patiently testing their own mining process, they allow exchanges, pools, wallet developers, and all other service operators to implement and test their support of BTG so that the Bitcoin Gold community can have a full suite of services at launch time," the project's backers said in a statement.