Bitcoin Gold (BTG)

Bitcoin Gold (BTG) is a hard fork of the Bitcoin blockchain, launched on October 24, 2017, at block 491407. The project was initiated by Jack Liao and a team of independent developers with the goal of restoring decentralized mining to a Bitcoin-style network. Bitcoin Gold preserves the 21 million supply cap and core monetary policy of Bitcoin, but it replaces SHA-256 with the Equihash proof-of-work algorithm so that ordinary GPU hardware can compete with the specialized ASIC machines that dominate Bitcoin mining. By widening the pool of potential miners, the project aims to reduce concentration of hashing power and return block production to a broader group of independent participants.

Technically, BTG runs a modified variant called Equihash-BTG (Equihash-144,5), introduced in 2018 to resist Equihash ASIC miners that emerged after the original fork. The network uses an LWMA difficulty adjustment that recalibrates every block to react quickly to hash rate changes, supports Segregated Witness, and includes strong replay protection through SIGHASH_FORK_ID, which keeps BTG transactions distinct from Bitcoin. Block intervals target ten minutes, matching Bitcoin, and addresses use the prefix “G” for legacy and “A” for multisig formats. Wallet support is broad, with several hardware wallets and a range of desktop and mobile clients recognising the Bitcoin Gold derivation path.

Bitcoin Gold has had a turbulent history alongside its technical development. The network suffered 51% attacks in May 2018 and again in January 2020, during which attackers reorganised the chain to execute double-spends on exchanges. These incidents prompted the Equihash-BTG upgrade and continued work on additional defences. Hash rate and trading volume remain modest compared with major chains, and the project is maintained by a small open-source team rather than a corporate foundation. Development is hosted on GitHub under the BTCGPU organisation, with regular but low-key releases. The live BTG price, market capitalisation, supply data and links to project resources are available on this page.