Bitcoin Gold Fork Occurs
The Bitcoin Gold hard fork is executed, creating a new chain focused on decentralized mining.
On October 24, 2017, the Bitcoin blockchain underwent its second major contentious fork of the year with the launch of Bitcoin Gold (BTG). The fork, based on block 491,407, officially split Bitcoin into two chains: the original Bitcoin and the newly created Bitcoin Gold. The defining feature of BTG was its use of the Equihash proof-of-work algorithm, intended to reduce reliance on ASIC hardware and make mining more accessible to GPU miners worldwide.
The project’s developers positioned BTG as a more egalitarian version of Bitcoin, but its rollout was marred by controversy. At launch, Bitcoin Gold lacked replay protection, raising concerns that transactions could be exploited across chains. Additionally, the project faced criticism for pre-mining approximately 100,000 coins before opening the network to the public, fueling suspicions of insider enrichment.
Despite these issues, Bitcoin Gold quickly gained listings on major exchanges and wallets, as traders sought to capture 'free coins' resulting from the fork.Though it never achieved lasting prominence, the BTG fork reflected ongoing tensions within the Bitcoin community about decentralization, mining power, and governance.