Bitcoin Gold was controversial, especially because part of the developer team had "pre-mined" the tidy sum of 100,000 tokens. Secondly, because the community always takes a dim view of cryptocurrencies using the name "Bitcoin", as if to benefit from the traction of the latter. Today, a new big problem has emerged with the discovery of a BTG mining pool tax, which has caused pools to close.
BTG: 0.5% hidden costs?
The Bitcoin Gold project had embarked on a major promise, making Bitcoin again decentralized, by decreasing the huge gap between minors using ASIC * and those using GPUs. However, there are already many problems in his short life. With the opening of the mining pools to the public, a new big problem appeared: the mining pool of BTG took a tax of 0.5% without the consent of minors. These hidden charges are sent straight into the purse of Martin Kuvandzhiev, a developer of Bitcoin Gold.
Kuvandzhiev did not wait to react to the accusations, and began by recalling that 0.5% was not huge for a developer who "made the project possible". He then added that this tax was not "hidden", the code being in open source, it was possible to withdraw it. He also recalled that many other pools were not as transparent about how they work:
"0.5% for a normal minor is less than $ 1 a month. Do not act like it's too much. Other softwares have a 1-2% charge, and are in closed source, you can not remove them. Martin Kuvandzhiev
BTG: mining groups start to close
The main argument of Bitcoin Gold was based on a mining potentially very profitable, even via graphics card. The problem is that in fact, the mining is absolutely chaotic. One of BTG's largest pools paid the fees, and announced it was closed two days ago. The meager profits made by the miners are, for many, now lost.
MinerTopia @MinerTopia
We are shutting down BTG Pool for good. We have lost so much money and resources on this project. You can come with more profit and work. Chapter closed ..
18:07 - 15 Nov 2017
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"We are closing BTG Pool for good. We lost too much money, time and resources on this project. You can come and mine with us more profitable corners that work for real. Chapter closed ... »
The official mining pool (pool.gold) has also come under fire from critics. Various users have indeed complained of a hashrate too low, the impossibility of connecting to servers and very late or nonexistent regulations on wallets.
Edit: several neutral returns on facebook tell us that these fees are not abnormal. Obviously the controversy was born because it surprised some minors. We are not immune to a FUD on Bitcoin Gold. The defense of the project leader (Kuvandzhiev) is present in the article. We remind you that passing on information is always a risk. If we contribute to spread a non-polemic initiated voluntarily by anti-Bitcoin Gold groups, we apologize.
- ASIC and GPU: ASICs (Application-Specific Integrated Circuit) are calculation tools specially created for the mining of cryptocurrencies. GPUs (graphics cards), they are present in all computers, in different versions. Thus, it is more profitable to mine with an ASIC, since especially dedicated to this task, however it is more risky since all your investment will depend on the future of the selected corner. In addition, ASICs are quickly out of date, and a simple change in the hash algorithm can make it completely useless. It is also complex to resell an ASIC, as their value falls quickly. No problem to resell graphics cards easily. Since initial costs are much lower, most "small miners" are turning to GPUs, but the continued presence of large entities using ASICs is decreasing their potential profits.