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Well well well, Bitcoin Gold is on it's way and it seems that a lot of popular exchanges are not supporting it ... In this blog I will be particularly talk about Bittrex not supporting it and the reasons why Bittrex is not supporting Bitcoin Gold.
Here is the official statement made by Bittrex on 22nd Oct, 2017
If you have a Bitcoin (BTC) balance on Bittrex during the BTG snapshot block 491,407 occurring approximately on October 23, 11pm PT (6am UTC), you will be additionally credited the equivalent amount of Bitcoin Gold (BTG) on a 1:1 basis. i.e. 1 BTC on Bittrex held during the on-exchange snapshot will get you 1 BTG. BTC held on orders will also be credited. Only the BTC held on your account is eligible for BTG. Full details below.
Bitcoin Gold [BTG] is a proposed digital asset.
At this time, the information and codebase presented by the Bitcoin Gold team is not in a functional state and Bittrex will not commit to opening a Bitcoin Gold trading market.
Bitcoin Gold intends to perform a wallet balance snapshot at Bitcoin block 491,407 but the actual Bitcoin Gold network will launch publicly at a later undetermined date and time (the only guidance is the statement "after the launch on Nov 1").
Bitcoin Gold does not currently have:
- Fully formed consensus code
- Implemented replay protection
- Adequate code for testing and auditing
- Publicly known code developers
Bitcoin Gold codebase also contains a private premine of 8,000 blocks (100,000 BTG). Please be aware that if a market does open there is a possibility of the developers selling their premined BTG on the open market.
When considering adding tokens to Bittrex exchange we look at the risks involved. Bitcoin Gold does not satisfy our criteria for safety for our users. Taking a snapshot of the Bittrex exchange Bitcoin wallet is also a large disruptive undertaking that requires over 24 hours of preparation (Bitcoin deposits and withdrawals are also suspended during this time) and should not be taken lightly.
Bittrex will close deposits and withdrawals of Bitcoin 24 hours prior at block 491,263 to the BTG snapshot block 491,407 occurring approximately on October 23, 11pm PT (6am UTC). If any BTC deposits you had sent to Bittrex are not settled (e.g. marked as pending) by block 491,263 you may not be credited with BTG. The wallet will remain closed until the on-exchange snapshot is complete. Trading will remain active during this time.
Bittrex will make all reasonable attempts to credit our users BTG but until we have a fully supported wallet, we can neither guarantee tokens or consider creating a market. We will continue to monitor the state of the codebase and network. We'd also like to encourage the BTG development team to reach out to us.
Further information:
Developer statement from Bitcoin Gold Slack:
Source - Twitter Link
Okay so Bittrex has clarified in their statement that they will be crediting BTC holder with BTCGPU but won't allow it to trade, it will work like a wallet more likely.
Now they have stated 4 reasons
1st . that BTCGPU does not have a "Fully formed consensus code" thats true and you can check it out here
2nd. Implemented replay protection was not also coded so they had put up a bounty of 250 BTG yes thats right they said BTG instead of BTCGPU , anyway and a bonus if the task is completed before 25th Oct that is before the hardfork.
Now how important is the replay protection well I had discussed about in earlier in my old blog where hackers can steal BTC by replay attack.
3rd. Adequate code for testing and auditing is not provided and everything has been done very poorly which can be seen in their repository
4th. Publicly known code developers : well not sure what exactly they meant by that but maybe they were talking about the previous work of these devs that can't be seen on their Github accounts
5th and this is the most important one in their consensus code they coded that there will be a premine of 8000 blocks which will reward the Devs with approx 100,000 BTCGPU or BTG which can be possibly be dumped by the devs and so the users will be in a risk which Bittrex does't want to it to happen. Here is the link to the code
My final thoughts are that this is a really good decision made by Bittrex to protect the traders, BTG is a Scam ? Well I can't say anything about that but yes the premine code is really looks very fishy to me