CoinDesk reports that Bitcoin (EXANTE: Bitcoin) developers may be preparing for a second split in the currency, following the split at the start of August that created Bitcoin Cash (EXANTE: Bitcoin.Cash).
The next “hard fork” will lead to the establishment of “Bitcoin Gold”, as developers work on improving protocols to increase transactions speeds.
Led by Jack Liao, CEO of Hong Kong mining firm LightningASIC, “Bitcoin Gold” (BTG) is slated to launch on October 25, with its cryptocurrency being opened to exchanges on November 1.
According to the development team, “Bitcoin Gold” will use the Equihash algorithm used by the altcoin Zcash rather than Bitcoin’s original SHA256.
The forked protocol aims to change bitcoin’s consensus algorithm allowing users to mine the currency with graphic processing units (GPU).
One month until #bgold exodus fork.
— Bitcoin Gold (@btcgpu) September 25, 2017
Hodl BTC on 10.25 get free BTG on 11.1#bgold1025 #blockchainQE #bitcoin pic.twitter.com/ORgjvTZK8m
“Bitcoin Gold implements the UAHF (User Activated Hard Fork) proposal to accept GPU mining. Miners can choose the size of the blocks they want to mine, with a default of 1 MB. It includes replay and wipeout protection,” explained the projects’ supporters on their website.
“For too long, Bitcoin has been held back by the centralized mining industry. GPU brings Bitcoin into the modern age with an exciting technological roadmap to enable massive on-chain scaling well into the future with decentralization,” they added.
Currently there are over 250 members in the Bitcoin Gold Slack channel.