Hello guys, and welcome to another in depth cryptocurrency review. In todays review, we will be taking a look at Bitcoin gold.

Bitcoin gold's creators believed that Bitcoin wasn't the decentralised God of money it was created to be. So they decided to fork Bitcoin and create Bitcoin gold, or BTG.

Bitcoin Gold's primary aim is to make Bitcoin decentralized again by altering Bitcoin’s mining algorithm from the usual SHA 256 to the Equihash algorithm. Equihash is mostly mined using GPUs, making it easier(theoretically) for just about anyone to mine BTG.
But has BTG really fixed the problem of centralised mining of Bitcoin? Let's take a look in this in depth review.
I will, as usual, be breaking up this review into the following parts:

• What is Bitcoin Gold?
• How can you get started mining it
• Where can you buy BTG?
• Where can you store your BTG safely?
• To trade or hodl BTG?
• Conclusion.

WHAT IS BITCOIN GOLD?

Bitcoin Gold is a hard fork of Bitcoin. I have explained what a hard fork is in this post, so check it out if you're confused or you don't know what a hard fork is. Don't worry, it's all in simple English!
Anyways, the hardfork occurred on the 25th October 2017 on block 491,407 on the Bitcoin blockchain, at around 10:00am Eastern.

The fork occurred due to the perceived(read: obvious) centralization of the mining experience happening in the classic Bitcoin.

The Bitcoin Gold project was  headed by Jack Liao, the CEO of the LightningAsic, a Hong Kong-based mining equipment manufacturing company. He was supported by a few developers and a lot of angry ex-Bitcoin miners.

Bitcoin follows the Proof of work protocol and does ASIC mining and because of this, the big boys and girls that have all the money can afford faster and more powerful ASIC devices and therefore have a better chance at mining than the others.

As a result of this, Bitcoin isn’t as decentralized as it was set out to be. 

Bitcoin Gold decided to solve this problem by altering Bitcoin’s Proof-of-Work algorithm from the regular SHA-256 to the Equihash algorithm. This new change more or less blocked ASIC devices from mining on the BTG network, and out the power back in the people's hands.

The BTG team then went on to do something really surprising after the launch of BTG. They called it  ‘Post Mining’.

What they did was that they mined 100,000 coins after the hard fork  took place. Thewaythey did this was by  mining 8000 blocks super fast at 12.5 BTG per block.

These coins served two purposes:

• A majority of these coins were set aside for the development of the BTG network.
• 5% of the remainder of these coins was set aside as a reward for the now rogue ex-Bitcoin developers and miners- sorry, the new BTG team.

After the launch and the fork, everyone who was holding Bitcoin was also rewarded with the equivalent of their Bitcoin balance in Bitcoin gold.

HOW IS BTG MINED?

As I mentioned previously, Bitcoin Gold is mined differently from Bitcoin. It uses a different hashing algorithm, which blocks ASIC devices out of the network. This is in a bid to ensure that decentralisation is reached.

To mine BTG, you’ll need:

• A BTG wallet, along with it's wallet address.
• A PC running on 64-bit OS Windows 7 or higher.
• GPU Mining Software (either AMD- or Nvidia-based)
• A reliable internet connection
• A lot of time because you won't get rich instantly.(Just had to remind you)

With the above requirements complete, you can start off solo mining BTG.

Other things to consider include electricity supply, how to cool your mining equipment, and how to manage the noise from the equipment. But you're smart. You'll figure it out.

WHERE CAN I BUY BTG?

Currently, the best place to buy BTG(and any other cryptocurrency for that matter) with your fiat is over at Binance. They used to be a crypto only exchange, meaning that they didn't accept fiat at all. But recently, they have started accepting fiat deposits and withdrawals, and for a limited time, there are no fees on either of these actions. Check out Binance here.

If you'd rather not use Binance, here are a few options based on your region:

Coinbase for users in the US and other supported countries.

Remitano for African customers.

Quidax for African and South American customers.

WHERE CAN I TRADE MY BTG TOKENS?

Currently, the best place with the highest volume to trade your BTG tokens is Binance. They have very liquid books, as well as many cross pairs with the BTG token, so you have a lot of options.

If you'd rather not go the Binance way, or you got some free BTG and you want Bitcoin instead, use Changelly. They are an instant exchange that is very fast and reliable.

WHERE CAN I KEEP MY BTG SAFE FROM ATTACKERS?

Bitcoin gold can be stored safely both offline and online.

To store it online, the safest wallets are:

• Coinbase wallet
• Trust Wallet
• Coinomi

To store it offline, the safest wallets are:

• Ledger Nano S
• Trezor

TO TRADE OR HODL BTG?

In my honest opinion, BTG is a coin that is best traded. It is very cheap to obtain, and as a fact, coins that don't cost much usually give greater returns than coins that do.

For instance, assuming BTG costs $8. A $0.5 move in its price represents over 6% gain for your portfolio.

It also doesn't hurt that BTG forms clear support and resistance levels, and is closely correlated with Bitcoin's price. You can't go wrong trading this.

CONCLUSION

BTG is a hard fork of bitcoin attempting to fix its centralised mining problem, and it does that to a great extent. There are no obvious faults with this coin, and it is a great investment for traders.

However, we cannot default the existence of some better alternatives like BCH. I will review that in my next review next week, so stay tuned.

Thanks for reading.

PS: I recently started a very big project that I'd like you to be a part of. All the tips on this post and my next post is going into that project, because I really believe in it. Check out the post explaining this project here. And please, consider supporting. Thanks!