From 2017-2018, there arose several forks (or slightly altered copies) of the original bitcoin protocol. Each one sought to improve upon the original: how to better scale the network, how to reduce transaction fees, and whether or not the block size should be changed. Each project had different answers to these questions. Perhaps the most prevalent and long-lasting example of one of these forks is Bitcoin Cash (BCH).

BCH was created in August 2017 and increased the block size in order to handle more transactions per second with lower fees. Other major forks that came out around that time include Bitcoin Satoshi Vision (BSV) and Bitcoin Gold (BTG). While BCH remains active, liquid, and in use today, the other forks from that time have died out and become worthless, or lost over 90% of their value.

This brings us to 2026. Bitcoin forks can be created relatively easily because bitcoin's underlying code is open-source, and anyone with the technical know-how can copy and alter it. As stated before, nearly every single fork of the original bitcoin protocol has been a failed experiment. Now, for some reason, there has been a resurgence of these new btc shitcoins. Perhaps it's the increased availability of at-home ASICs that's enabling the mining of these newly created coins. 

I have explored a number of these recently and have come to the same conclusion about all of them: they all seem to be low-effort clones with minimal changes to the original protocol and fail to catch "lightning in a bottle" like the original project.

One hallmark that is a major red flag to me is that they all seem to have pre-mined coins. These are tokens that are created and distributed to the project's creators/developers. They say they're for funding development, team compensation, marketing/airdrops, but what this pre-mined allocation can really be is a major rugpull pending; a centralization that ruins the "fair launch" concept where no proof-of-work is required for these pre-mined coins. A project with a pre-mine should have a clear roadmap with what those funds will spent on, ideally locked in a smart contract with a vesting schedule.

So, let's take a look at some of these current bitcoin forks:

Bitcoin Oil, 7.43 TH/s Network hashrate, 0 daily trading volume, Current Price:$0.0000000000055 USD ... looks dead in the water

Bitcoin II (BC2), 75.94 PH/s Network hashrate, $135k daily trading volume, Current Price:$0.35 USD ... well off all-time high of $2.37

Bitcoin Gold (BTGS Coin), 740 TH/s Network hashrate, $500 daily trading volume, Current Price: $0.009886 USD ... created 17 days ago

Bitcoin Silver (BTCS), 2.14 PH/s Network hashrate, $100 daily trading volume, Current Price: $0.003386 USD ... price downfall of -63% over the past 90 days

Bitcoin-Blu (BBLU), 243 TH/s Network hashrate, $250 daily trading volume, Current Price:$0.010738 USD ... launched in December 2025

Am I claiming each of these projects to be doomed from the start? No. I cannot predict the future. But if history is any indicator, all of these coins have a hard uphill battle to stay relevant. Just my thoughts...

The original Bitcoin faucet is long gone, but there are still ways to collect some free crypto if you invest some of your free time:

• Sign up here on Publish0x, if you haven't already, to earn free crypto for reading & writing content

• Join Cointiply and roll the faucet every hour, view PTC ads, take surveys to earn free Bitcoin, Litecoin, Dogecoin, or Dash

• Downoad the Bitcoin Cash Giveaway to collect some free BCH sats, paid out weekly

• Check out Yescoiner to easily collect some satoshis; no nonsense -- just solve a captcha. Low payout, slow drip here

• For rewards in XNO, DOGE and BTC, check out TipNano app

• Final Autoclaim is DutchyCorp's longstanding faucet, online and active since 2019

• If you're DCA'ing your Bitcoin stack, try River for zero-fee recurring BTC buys & earn 3.5% Bitcoin interest on deposited USD

• Slice is a Google Chrome browser extension that allows you to earn BTC for browsing, paid via Lightning Network

If you're interested in Bitcoin Lottery Mining and want to get a desktop Bitcoin miner:

• Head to Solo Satoshi and check out their open-source BitAxe models. They're a great starting point for beginning miners!