Many people never seem to know the actual difference between Bitcoin (BTC) and Bitcoin Gold (BTG) – but don’t worry, I’ve found the perfect video to help us out with that. Take a look below:

I hope you now have an idea of how they differ, and if you still don’t, I will clearly explain what BTG is, seeing as most of you already know what BTC is. In addition, I will share with you where Bitcoin Gold is trading, among a few other things.

So let’s not keep you waiting!

What is Bitcoin Gold (BTG)?

After Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin Gold is the next cryptocurrency that stemmed from Bitcoin’s blockchain. Having taken place in 2017, the platform retained Bitcoin’s history, even though it operates completely separately.

This means that anyone who owned Bitcoin before BTG came into existence, was automatically given an equal amount of Bitcoin Gold.

This digital asset makes it possible for users to earn more from their trading cycles by introducing a new mining algorithm which is not prone to AISC-related optimization.

How to Trade Bitcoin Gold

You can trade this crypto in four easy steps:

• Set up a trading account on Avatrade
• Avail funds to your account
• Choose the amount you wish to invest
• Buy (Go Long) or Sell (Go Short) your Bitcoin Gold

Mining Bitcoin Gold

If you’ve heard of Bitcoin mining, then you’ve probably also heard about how profitable it can be.

However, I’m guessing what you might not have known is how expensive Bitcoin mining can be. Most miners are not able to afford to mine Bitcoin on their own; therefore, most of the time, teams of miners will pool their resources together in order to mine Bitcoin. The mining process requires facilities to accommodate hundreds of mining rigs, as well as other heavy computing equipment.

As you can see, if someone embarks on the mining affair as an individual, they would end up spending enormous amounts of resources in terms of money, time, and energy. Most miners who have tried it have confessed that the biggest cost has to do with the electricity usage; the systems apparently consume more electricity than most manufacturing industries you may know today.

This is the reason that BTG decided to change the way mining is done – by changing their algorithm and prohibiting the use of ASIC chips in the mining process. This measure also prevented big firms from dominating the sector due to their advantage in terms of resources – instead, Bitcoin Gold made sure to allow solo miners to be able to partake in the process using the minimal amount of resources at their disposal.

Bitcoin Gold Exchanges

The survival of most coins is largely dependent on their performance on the various exchanges they get listed on.

Bitcoin Gold has been doing well ever since it first got listed and has seen a steady and positive trend in its price over time. Currently, the cryptocurrency is trading on over thirty exchanges across the world. Some of the major exchanges that trade BTG include Binance, Bittrex, and Bitfinex.

However, it is expected that other exchanges, such as BitFlyer and Coinbase, will be listing BTG soon enough.  In addition, you’ll also find it useful to know that Bitcoin Gold is supported by numerous wallets including the Ledger Wallet, Exodus Wallet, Trezor Wallet, BitPie, Coinomi, BTG Wallet, Cobo, Kasse, and Freewallet.

Where to Buy, Sell, and Trade Bitcoin Gold

After the 2017 fork, Bitcoin Gold is now available for trading.

Having been released to the public in late 2017, the coin has been well-received by the crypto community. As at the time of writing this article, the coin boasts of a market capitalization of about $1.5 billion, with a current supply capacity of 16, 805,449 $BTG.

Where to Trade BTG

Currently, BTG can be bought, sold, and traded on 27 exchanges namely:

Binance, HitBTC, Bithump, Bitfinex, Instant Bitex, Binance, UPbit, Exmo, Indodax, OKEx, Huobi, Koineks, P2pb2b, YoBit, Exrates, CEX.IO, Bitinka, Korbit, Gate.io, Dsx, CREX24, Kucoin, Trade Satoshi, Bitsane, SouthXchange, Bit-Z, Braziliex, and BigONE.

Like I mentioned earlier on, more exchanges are expected to list BTG in the future since it’s barely been one year since the coin was launched.

Why You Need Bitcoin Gold

One of the major objectives for the team behind BTG is to create a wholly decentralized version of Bitcoin. For that to happen, the developers of BTG had to set up the mining process to be accessible to more people, and by changing the Bitcoin mining algorithm, they made it possible the cryptocurrency to be mined using more graphics card.

Bitcoin Gold has also put in place a proof-of-work shift from BTC’s SHA256 to Equihash. This is a memory-hard algorithm, which is resistant to ASIC and also suitable for the mining of GPU.

In addition, the technology behind Bitcoin Gold is so similar to Bitcoin’s, which means that its fundamental functionality adheres to Satoshi’s original vision for the cryptocurrency.

And, as you’ve noticed by now, BTG has managed to achieve a lot in the short time that it has been around. It has achieved such high trading volumes and a decent market capitalization that most other cryptos, which have been around for close to a decade, haven’t been able to get close to. This means that in the near future, this cryptocurrency might be one of the best choices to bet your investment on.

Bitcoin Gold’s Competition

If you’re going to trade Bitcoin Gold, it is also essential to talk about some of the challenges it faces today. And just like any other digital asset, the prices and overall market performance of BTG can be affected by many factors including news, development, and updates from its competitors.

Bitcoin Gold’s closest competition comes from:

Bitcoin: This is the first cryptocurrency to be established and as you already know, played a big role in the development of BTG. Currently, it commands a market share of more than 50% making it the largest crypto in terms of market capitalization. However, since BTG is one of BTC’s forks, it might find itself in a hard place when trying to build its own reputation separately from its parent.

Ethereum: Ethereum is the second largest cryptocurrency after Bitcoin, and commands another huge market in the digital currency space. Being an anti-ASIC coin, it is expected that this might perhaps be the closest rival of BTG, since they both offer almost the same thing to their users.

Bitcoin Cash: Just like Bitcoin Gold, this coin has close ties with Bitcoin. It was the first coin to be forked from Bitcoin, and came before the development of BTG. Its main goal is to solve the scalability problem that seems to behoove Bitcoin, as well as to provide cheaper and faster transactions for users.

The Future of Bitcoin Gold

Even as the coin continues to gain popularity, the team behind it continues to improve its functionality to boost its user returns.

In the first quarter of 2018, Bitcoin Gold conducted a full rebranding of its coin, came up with a more refreshed and user-friendly website, and also integrated a number of open-source libraries such as CoPay, BitcoinJS, and BitcoinJ. All these changes are expected to be rolled out in phases, which will ensure a smooth transition from one phase to another.

In the second quarter, Bitcoin Gold secured an integration partnership with a lightning network that enabled it to increase its decentralization through mining using P2Pool. This is the quarter which also saw the platform launch various payment methods including BTG Pay, as well as the debit and credit card modes of payment.

Additionally, for most of the second and third quarters of 2018, the BTG platform began the process of adding cross-chain atomic swaps and side chains, as well as catering to upcoming developers through the provision of funding opportunities on conferences and meetups. This is in line with the company’s corporate and social responsibilities to their community of cryptocurrency users.

In the fourth quarter, the BTG team is expected to introduce RSK side chains with smart contracts, as well as cross-chain atomic swaps that will make it possible for a user to exchange different coins without going through third-party platforms. Furthermore, it is expected that BTG will soon incorporate the Schnorr signature feature to enable its users to re-use their signatures on hundreds of transactions, rather than manually signing each one.

And according to Bitcoin Gold, there’s still more to come even as we approach 2019.

In Conclusion

It’s crystal clear that the team behind the Bitcoin Gold coin is fully aware of its close ties to the most popular cryptocurrency in the world; Bitcoin, and thus, comes the pressure to maintain high standards of operations. This has brought about the need to establish programs that will focus on bringing value to the cryptocurrency users, not only BTG as a company.

Despite any controversies regarding the coin, many Bitcoin Gold exchanges remain confident that the coin might, after all, live to outperform some of the biggest names in the industry. And as much as they still haven’t achieved everything they initially set out to, it is still encouraging to see so much having been done in such a short period of time.