Daily: What the Fork?? (Bitcoin Gold, Segwit 2x)

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Description

Bitcoin Gold has successfully forked and is now actively being traded on the markets. In this episode, we look at the results of this fork and also the upcoming fork: Segwit2x. 0:42 Market Recap 1:35...

AI Analysis

This video dives deep into the volatile world of Bitcoin forks, providing an update on the recently launched Bitcoin Gold and a detailed look into the highly contentious upcoming SegWit2x fork. It covers the market's reaction, the implications for the broader crypto ecosystem, and the underlying power struggles driving these significant changes in the Bitcoin network.

Here's a breakdown of the key topics:

* Market Recap:
* Bitcoin's price remained relatively stable around the $5,700 level, despite recent events.
* Following the Bitcoin Gold launch, Bitcoin experienced a brief dip but then rallied, returning to its stable price point.
* Altcoins saw a mini-rally and then a slight drop after Bitcoin Gold launched, ending up slightly higher than before. Overall, the market showed a lot of green due to a rally from the previous day.

* Bitcoin Gold Launch:
* Bitcoin Gold (BTG) launched at around $500 but quickly dropped to approximately $100-$138, which was close to initial predictions.
* The coin experienced significant volatility, with major players and holders likely dumping their BTG onto the market.
* Many exchanges, including Bitfinex, HitBTC, and Binance, are actively trading Bitcoin Gold.
* Further price fluctuations are expected as more wallet support, like Ledger, becomes available. Once users can easily access and withdraw their BTG, it could lead to more coins being dumped on the market, potentially causing further price drops.
* The "pre-mining" aspect of Bitcoin Gold is a point of contention; developers pre-mined 100,000 BTG after the fork, giving them a significant amount of money (around $10 million at the time).
* This success has, unfortunately, set a precedent, encouraging other developers to fork Bitcoin and pre-mine coins for profit, leading to new, potentially frivolous forks like "Bitcoin Silver" and "Bitcoin Bronze."
* Bitcoin Gold's fork was less successful than Bitcoin Cash, as it caused a dip in Bitcoin's price, and BTG's value is significantly lower than Bitcoin Cash's.
* It's expected that future Bitcoin forks will garner less media attention and be worth less and less money until this method of generating quick profits for developers becomes unfeasible.

* SegWit2x Fork:
* SegWit2x is an extremely contentious hard fork that aims to double Bitcoin's block size from 1 megabyte to 2 megabytes.
* A hard fork is necessary because Bitcoin's current protocol rejects blocks larger than 1MB, requiring a fundamental change to the network's consensus code.
* This fork is highly likely to split Bitcoin into two separate coins, both of which will aim to be called "Bitcoin."
* The conflict is deeper than just a technical change; it's considered a "Bitcoin civil war" about who controls the code, future development, and the overall direction of Bitcoin. Both sides believe they represent the "original" Bitcoin.
* Coinbase, a major fiat-to-crypto exchange, initially stated that the current block size Bitcoin (BTC) would retain the "Bitcoin" name, and the SegWit2x fork would be called "B2X."
However, Coinbase reversed this decision, announcing they would temporarily call the SegWit2x fork "B2X" but ultimately designate the chain with the most accumulated difficulty* (meaning the most miner support) as "Bitcoin."
* The concept of "accumulated difficulty" indicates which chain has more hash power backing it, implying it's the more robust network. This is different from mere chain length, as seen with Bitcoin Cash which has a longer chain but lower network hash difficulty.
* Not all exchanges support SegWit2x; for instance, the local exchange Anx Pro has decided against it.
* The deadline for the SegWit2x fork is approaching in about 20 days (from the video's release), and it is anticipated to cause significant changes in the cryptocurrency environment.
* The power struggle and control over the network are central to this debate, making it a critical event for the future of Bitcoin.

Transcript

What's up everyone my name is Michael and welcome to Box Mining Daily. Today will be a forking episode all about the forks. So we're going to start off with the market recap first but then we're going to move on to the Bitcoin Gold fork. Kind of a update on what's happening with the Bitcoin Gold and kind of what's happening with the network. Then we're going to talk about SegWit2x. There's a lot of drama and exchanges are finally issuing out statements regarding the SegWit2x fork. So I thought ...