Bitcoin, the revolutionary cryptocurrency, had another Hard Fork. This was the third fork of Bitcoin, after success in the Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin Gold.
Here are some of the basic questions that usually arise when a fork is done:
- What is this fork called?
- When did this fork happen?
- Who was doing this fork?
- Why has this fork happened?
- How will BCD solve these issues?
- What is the total supply of coins and their economics?
- Who is supporting this fork?
- Do you need to be worried about this fork?
- What do you need to do to benefit from this fork?
- Final thoughts on this fork.
- What is this fork called?
Bitcoin did another hard fork, and the coin created this time is Bitcoin Diamond and is dubbed as BCD.
- When has this fork happen?
According to their official website, this new Bitcoin hard fork happened on 24th November 2017 at about 1:20 am Pacific Standard Time at block height 495866.
It is a friendly fork. This means that it is not being done to compete with original Bitcoin. This new fork is done for reasons that I will explain further in this post.
According to the official site:
„Bitcoin Diamond (BCD) is a fork of Bitcoin that occurs at the predetermined height of block 495866 and therewith a new chain will be generated as the BCD. Bitcoin Diamond miners will begin creating blocks with a new proof-of-work algorithm, and will consecutively develop and enhance the protection for account transfer and privacy based on original features of BTC. This will cause a bifurcation of the Bitcoin blockchain. The original Bitcoin blockchain will continue unaltered, but a new branch of the blockchain will split off from the original chain. It shares the same transaction history with Bitcoin until it starts branching and coming into a unique block from which it diverges. As a result of this process, a new cryptocurrency was created which we call “Bitcoin Diamond”.“
- Who is doing this fork?
As per their official website, this fork is the result of a collaboration between two Bitcoin mining teams, Team 007 and Team EVEY, who joined to form the aptly named Bitcoin Diamond Foundation.
- Why has this fork happened?
Namely, they have stated that the reason why they have forked Bitcoin is because they don’t see the actual Bitcoin scaling and serving the needs of growing users.
They have forked BTC into Bitcoin Diamond because of following problems:
- High threshold for new members
- Slow transaction confirmations in BTC transactions
- Lack of privacy protection in BTC
So they have decided to make a better version of Bitcoin, with better features.
- How will BCD solve these issues?
Bitcoin Diamond will try to solve these issues by doing the following:
- BCD will increase the total supply of coins to lower the cost of participation threshold.
- BCD will tackle Bitcoin’s scalability issues and provide fast transaction confirmations by raising the block size to 8 MB. (According to Bitcoin Diamond’s website, “the speed of generating blocks will be increased 5 times. The ultimate goal is to improve transaction confirmation speed for the entire BTC blockchain”.)
- BCD will provide privacy protection by encryption.
- What is the total supply of coins and their economics?
There’s a total supply of 210 million Bitcoin Diamonds, and the price was set at a rate of 1 BTC = 10 BCD, which means that anyone who had Bitcoin when the fork occurred has 10 Bitcoin Diamonds for every 1 Bitcoin they owned. That’s a 10 times higher total supply than the original bitcoin blockchain, and they have said that they will not increase the supply more than this.
Out of this total supply 170 million BCD, will be entitled to the Bitcoin holders for the long-term Bitcoin support, and the rest 40 million BCD will be automatically transferred into the community rewards pool as tributes and mining.
- Who is supporting this fork?
This part is a quite questionable one because there is not much clarity about it yet. Also, Bitcoin Diamond has listed quite a few exchanges and wallets supporting them with this note:
Disclaimer: The Bitcoin Diamond Organization (btcd.io) cannot take responsibility for third-party providers, such as the listed wallets, exchanges, pools, and sites. All links hosted on our domain are by third parties and community members. By clicking on any of the listed links you are accepting the risks of using the third party domain and taking responsibility for any damage, losses or other problems using the said domain. Investors and users must remain vigilant because cryptocurrencies are inherently risky.
But still, I will list those wallet services and exchanges here. I will also keep updating this section as and when I keep getting more concrete information on them.
BCD Wallets
BCD Exchanges
BUY/SELL Bitcoin Diamond (BCD) Exchanges Here
- Kucoin – Supported pairs BCD/ETH, BCD/BTC
- Yobit-Supported pairs BCD/ETH, BCD/BTC, BCD/USD, BCD/RUR
- Binance – Supported pairs BCD/ETH, BCD/BTC
- Gate.io
There are some more exchanges. However, we really don’t trust them so as of now you can trade Bitcoin Diamond futures here until the late December when the Mainnet and wallet will be published.
Important Note: We don’t recommend you to use the above-listed wallets because we have not reviewed them and we don’t trust BCD. One more thing worth noting is that Ledger doesn’t support BCD as of now.
- Do you need to be worried about this fork?
Not really. This Bitcoin fork is just another fork like cash or gold and it is going to end up well as they are just another altcoin.
Moreover, you will be getting BCD in 1 BTC: 10 BCD ratio. This is free money and free money is always good.
Also, according to their official website, they have made changes in BCD trading format which will prevent replay attacks.
- What do you need to do to benefit from this fork?
Now the million dollar question is: What do you need to do to avoid replay attacks and access your free BCD coins? We suggest you take care of the following things:
- We really don’t know yet how good is their replay protection, so you should avoid transactions for some days till the dust settles to avoid replay attacks.
- You should keep your bitcoin private keys secure with yourself, and not on a third party exchange like Coinbase.
- You should use hardware wallets like the Trezor and Ledger Nano S, because the last time, during the Bitcoin Gold and Bitcoin Cash fork, these two hardware wallets were the first to support the forked coin.
- If you don’t have a hardware wallet, you can use software wallets like Exodus, Coinomi, Jaxx, and Mycelium to control your private keys.
- You can also use a brain wallet or paper wallet.
- If you hold your keys in a software wallet or paper wallet, you should wait for instructions on how to access your BCD coins (on well-know exchange).
- If you need quick access to your BCD, you can keep your BTC on a BCD supported exchange However, this is highly risky and not recommended from us. So if you do decide to keep your BTC on a BCD supported exchange, please do it at your own risk.
Order Trezor | Order Ledger Nano S
Final thoughts on this fork
Check Bitcoin Diamond Twitter:
Tweets by @BitcoinDiamond_
After the successful fork of Bitcoin Gold and Bitcoin Cash, it will be highly underestimating to do away this fork. They are doing something unique with Bitcoin fork, in a different way.
Also, I think that Bitcoin Diamond will be a 100% mined coins because they are moving 40 million for other purpose. However, I could also be wrong because maybe they launch themselves with reduced ratio or denominations, which is still not very clear from them yet officially.
But surely if this fork happens, it will survive and will have marketplace. Here are the reasons why I think that Bitcoin’s journey to mainstream acceptance and practical adoption will most likely continue down a road:
- Bitcoin Diamond is GPU minable plus with increased block size (8MB).
- Bitcoin Diamond has privacy features that no fork of Bitcoin has yet.
- Bitcoin Diamond has segwit.
- Bitcoin Diamond is GPU minable coin with optimization of X13 Proof-of-Work (PoW).
These are all very low entry barriers for traders, users, developers, and miners. That’s why I think BCD will survive because a coin needs these many things only to survive.
And as per their released roadmap, they look serious. However, I really have to say that the roadmap doesn’t look so impressive.
Official Resources
