Although Bitcoin forced bifurcations try to make a dent in the position of that cryptoactive and blockchain network, the truth is that they have become an excuse to receive free money, and 2017 has been a year to realize this.
After the boom of the ICO and its consequent prohibition in some parts of the world, the realization of bifurcations agitated the markets during this year, which still has several hard forks to witness. In this article we will know some of those that will take place before the end of 2017.
Bitcoin seems unbeatable with a rally of prices and adoption during the last weeks, which has made it reach values over 16,000 USD, in addition to generating a similar impact on most of the market cryptoactives. Now there are several proposals that try to solve Bitcoin aspects such as congestion and the price of transaction fees, among these we have: Bitcoin Gold, Bitcoin Diamond and Bitcoin Cash.
In fact, some comments refer that 2018 will be the year of the 'Initial Fork Offering', in a sarcastic way referring to the ICO to denote that bifurcations will be a frequent event and an excuse for each project to fund its launch.
For the month of December, new bifurcations are scheduled in the Bitcoin network, which promises to make this month a season of strong commercial and financial activity. This thanks to the fact that the new cryptoactives could be shared among those who already own bitcoin, as has happened before.
Upcoming Bitcoin Hard Forks:
Super Bitcoin (498888 block)
Bitcoin Platinum (500000 block)
Bitcoin Uranium (unknown)
Bitcoin Cash Plus (501407 block)
Bitcoin Silver (TBD) $BTC
THE CRIPTOACTIVE OF THESE FORCES ARE RECLAMABLE?
The next cryptoactives to be issued are Super Bitcoin, Bitcoin Silver, Bitcoin Platinum, Lightning Bitcoin, Bitcoin God and Bitcoin Uranium, all projects that with their different proposals seek to solve the issues of Bitcoin scalability, although it is not clear if they offer real solutions to these matters
BITCOIN PLATINUM
The bifurcation of Bitcoin Platinum (BTCPLT) finally occurred at the height of block 496525, and aims to implement mining with GPU and SegWit2x technology. This cryptocurrency will also be preminated. For its part, the Bitcoin Platinum developer team argues that "a bifurcation is the most just and efficient method of creating and distributing a new crony payment."
SUPER BITCOIN
Within a few hours, if not tomorrow, it is likely that the Super Bitcoin fork will be made up to block 498,888 of Bitcoin. Although this cryptoactive and its network will be a technical experiment, anyone who possesses bitcoins for the time of this bifurcation will receive the equivalent in said crypto-active for free.
Super Bitcoin is qualified as an experiment because its developers intend to make the features recommended by users throughout the extended debate related to the scalability of Bitcoin, in order to study its effects. Among the properties that they plan to add are: Lightning Network, Intelligent Contracts, Zero Knowledge Test and larger block size (8 MB).
According to its website, Super Bitcoin already has the support of exchange houses like Bitfinex, Huobi, ZB.com and Okex.
LIGHTNING BITCOIN
The Bitcoin Lightning project (LBTC) will be bifurcated from block 499,999, estimated for December 23, 2017. It aims to implement solutions that allow a maximum of 24 million transactions per day, thanks to the proposed DPOS methodology.
This type of processing mechanism known in Spanish as the Delegate Participation Test allows miners to control the time of creation of blocks according to their interests, while through delegated verification it will be less necessary to have many nodes; although this could indicate a potential centralization in the processing of this network.
It should be noted that the proposal is supported by companies such as CEX.io and BTCC.
BITCOIN URANIUM
The Bitcoin Uranium bifurcation will take place on December 31 approximately, although the exact height of the chain in which it will occur has not been specified. About this proposal began to speak at the end of October and is known to include the Equihash algorithm in its Test-of-Work scheme, to be mined with GPU and CPU. In addition, it will have a scheduled broadcast of no more than 21 million units, a block size of 1 MB, block creation time of 1 minute and will not be compatible with ASIC devices.
BITCOIN SILVER
In particular, Bitcoin Silver does not yet have a white paper or a publicly known team of developers, which does not help to dispel doubts about its proposal. In addition, they are holding a fundraising campaign through an ICO, raising even more suspicions. Despite being raising funds, all those who own bitcoins for the time of the bifurcation will also receive their Bitcoin Silver in an equivalent manner. However, they have not yet announced at what height this separation of the original chain will happen.
As for the reasons for launching this new network from a Bitcoin fork, the Bitcoin Silver team argues that mining is currently centralized and dominated by a few large companies, some of which claim that they have engaged in abusive practices against the network and the small miners.
Until now, Bitcoin Silver (BTCS) has the support of the EtherDelta exchange house, where their futures are already listed. However, according to your account on twitter are in talks to be included also in CoinExchange.io.
BITCOIN GOD
Bitcoin God, the "Bitcoin God", is a proposal that will be bifurcated at the height of block 501.225, which is expected to be mined on December 25, the day on which the arrival of Christmas is celebrated. So far there is no greater knowledge about this cryptoactive, except that there will be a maximum emission of 21 million units and that it will not be preminated. So far there has been no official announcement about this cryptoactive and the information that is handled was revealed by investor Chandler Guo through Twitter, who also supports the project.
ETHEREUM CLASSIC
Ethereum Classic will have a protocol upgrade ECIP-2017 which is aimed at the stabilisation of the coin supply and considered as a hardfork of the coin to achieve a monetary policy that balances the long-term interests of investors, developers, and business operators. It is planned to go live on December 12.