- I hate contentious chain forks. I've covered this in depth previously, so I'm not rehashing all of that, but suffice it to say, I'm not a fan of BTCP or any new project created from a chain fork instead of a code fork.
- 2018 is the year of the privacy coin. There are many reasons why, also not going into all of that right now.
- The method used to make ZCL and soon to be BTCP private is promising, but does have a few weaknesses on a technical level. However, it's good enough for Ethereum.
- Nothing is more obviously a private crypto to noobs than something called Bitcoin Private.
- BTC is the more expensive but safer way to participate in this "fork". BTC will still have it's value after the fork, so BTCP is just a bonus.
- ZCL is the cheaper, but riskier way to participate in this fork since it is unclear whether ZCL will be maintained after the fork, making BTCP the core value to holding ZCL til the fork.
- According to the BTCP team, any wallet where you hold your private keys will work for ZCL.
- According to the BTCP team, any wallet where you hold your private keys will work for BTCP.
- No exchanges have said they will support BTCP, so I will update that when I know more.
Strategy Chat
Holding coins for the BTCP fork in hopes of profit means that you must make more than you paid. For BTC, that's not an issues. For ZCL, that means you're counting on post fork ZCL and BTCP to be worth more than whatever your ZCL buy in was.
A basic way to figure this out is:
Your ZCL cost before fork - Your ZCL sell price after fork = Your BTCP cost
Situation 1:
If you got into ZCL early and can exit before ZCL crashes, then you'll have low or no cost, maybe even profit.
Strategy Tip:
If this applies to you, you likely don't need this advice, but it may be worthwhile for you to sell enough to cover your cost and lockin profit before the snapshot at 5pm UTC on the 28th.
Situation 2:
If you got into ZCL later, your timing will be much more important as you'll want to lock in the highest rate you can for ZCL post fork. The pre-announcement price of ZCL was around $2 or 20k satoshis. I expect it to return to the sub $10 range post snapshot.
Strategy Tip:
If you bought today, that would represent a potential loss of $133 or .01314080 BTC per ZCL, roughly -98.5%. The higher you paid and the lower amount you're able to recover by selling post snapshot, the higher your BTCP cost will be.
However, I view BTCP as somewhere between BCH and BCG. Price wise, BTG has been as high as $478 or .08 BTC. It is currently sitting around $123 or .0122 BTC. With a strategic ZCL sell post snapshot, you could still profit even if you bought the top, which is $235 USD or .0188 BTC. I've shared my opinion in valuing in USD and how much better it is to value in BTC, but did both for the noobs.
Example (USD Value):
ZCL cost: $235
ZCL post snapshot sell: $90
BTCP cost: $145
Example (Sat Value):
ZCL cost: .0188 BTC
ZCL post snapshot sell: .009
BTCP cost: .0098 BTC
The BTCP cost in either of these scenarios is still low enough to profit. One of the issues with this is that without knowing what exchanges will credit BTCP, you may struggle to get ZCL held off-exchange, transferred to exchange, and sold fast enough to locking a decent sell.
How To Participate:
If you hold ZCL or BTC you'll be credited BTCP. Presently, no exchanges are have said they'll credit BTCP for the fork, though that situation is fluid. You need to prepare to handle it yourself. The basic instructions for claiming forked coins not on an exchange:
- Create a new wallet address with private keys you hold.
- Move main coin to it
- Wait for fork block to pass.
- Move main coin out of address.
- Now claim the forked coins by moving them out using the private keys or entering private keys in the new coin's wallet.
- Do not reuse the address, consider it burned and store coins separately moving forward.
Considerations
In this case, it's a bit more complicated because it's not just a fork, it's also sort of a merge.
Instead of a block number, the soonest block on both chains after 5pm UTC on the 28th will be the snapshot, the network won't be live for a few days after the snapshot, so you won't be able to claim BTCP for a few days after the snapshot. For those with both BTC and ZCL at the time of the snapshot, you'll end up doing the process twice, once for ZCL and once for BTC.
Updates
TradeSatoshi is the first exchange to announce they'll credit for the fork. This is a low volume, poorly supported exchange that has been around since 2015. It is important to consider the volume before intending to use it for a quick sale after the snapshot.
HitBTC and Kucoin have opted to announce they'll be listing BTCP.