Updates | Bitcoin Gold

BTG AMA

Edward Iskra — Tue, 18 May 2021 21:46:10 +0000

April brought a variety of news for the BTG community. Some, we did not plan – like when Binance added new BTG trading pairs, and then added BTG margin trading. Others were totally our doing – like when we published our updated Roadmap for 2021.

The new Roadmap has generated a lot of questions… and we’d like to provide a lot of answers. So, to make it easier for folks, we’re holding our first self-hosted AMA on our Discord server this upcoming Saturday.

Join us Saturday for an hour at 13:00 UTC and ask us anything!

That’s 9:00 NYC, 14:00 London, 16:00 Moscow, 21:00 Beijing.

Click here to Join the Discord!

You can also join us ahead of time to submit questions to be answered in the first half hour; the second half will be for followups and new questions.

Comments or questions? Continue the discussion on our Forum.

BTG Roadmap 2021

Edward Iskra — Tue, 27 Apr 2021 00:30:58 +0000

The Course Ahead

At inception, Bitcoin Gold was focused on providing a cryptocurrency in the Bitcoin model, but which was more decentralized for miners. Today, our focus is on making BTG a more trustless and useful cryptocurrency for everyone, and that change in focus is evident in our current development roadmap.

While we’ve always been broadly pro-crypto and believed in collaboration, the push to improve usability and usefulness entails a push towards interoperability. This means adapting so that BTG can be used with the best smart contract protocols; it means pooling security from bigger chains and offering it to smaller chains; it means making BTG, and BTG’s value, accessible throughout the smart-contract ecosystem, leveraging their security models as well as their technical capabilities: it means creating more value for everyone.

The development items on our current roadmap fall into four general areas:

Interoperability: things which grant or enhance the ability for BTG to interact bidirectionally with other blockchains and blockchain ecosystems, like Polkadot and Ethereum. Work on the bridge to Phala Network is already underway.

Applications: things which can be done after that interoperability is established. These hint at what’s possible, but need to wait until Interoperability comes to life. One notable item here: we plan to gradually shift from our traditional Board-based governance structure to a modern DAO-based model, which we expect to bring new people into the governance process and to help decentralize management of the chain and the project.

Infrastructure: these are core items in the BTG tech stack which need updates and refreshers. These are already underway, and some are very near completion, like new version(s) of our explorers, and a very-updated version of ElectrumG.

Lightning Network: establishing a robust and effective LN as a layer-2 solution is still very much on our development agenda, although current transaction volumes and fees don’t necessitate a solution at the moment. We want to build up the infrastructure and, most importantly, the user tool set, for an effective and easy-to-use LN before it becomes a critical need to alleviate transaction fee concerns and allow people to continue to make micropayments.

Here are all the things we’re currently doing or planning to do:

Interoperability

BTG-Polkadot Bridge: we’re building a lightweight BTG-Polkadot Bridge based on a Phala Bridge solution, built in partnership with Phala Network. This will enable cross-chain transactions between BTG and Phala, and leads to BTG gaining access to advanced blockchain functions like smart contracts, DeFi protocols, on-chain governance, and eventually connect to external blockchains like Ethereum.

Bridged ERC20/Wrapped Token: we’re creating a trustless wrapped token (like WBTC) through the cross-chain bridge, and making it accessible in the Polkadot and Ethereum DeFi ecosystems. This depends on the BTG-Polkadot Bridge.

Smart Contract Integration: we’ll connect BTG to smart-contract-enabled blockchains on Polkadot and / or Ethereum, allowing wide use cases to be developed for BTG. This depends on the Bridged ERC20/Wrapped Token.

Confidential Smart Contracts: integrating with Phala Network’s Confidential Smart Contracts to provide on-chain confidentiality. This depends on the BTG-Polkadot Bridge.

Applications

BTG for DEX: we’ll work to establish BTG trading pairs on a well-known DEX (e.g. Uniswap) and bootstrap liquidity, making BTG more accessible and attracting more liquidity around the world. This depends on the Bridged ERC20/Wrapped Token.

BTG for Lending: we’ll list BTG as a lending asset on well-known lending platforms (e.g. Aave) and bootstrap liquidity. This will empower investors and miners to better plan and utilize their BTG income. This depends on the Bridged ERC20/Wrapped Token.

DAO On-chain Governance: we’ll build a DAO structure as a smart contract to replace the current governance model. This will take time, but the intent is to fully move the Endowment and any future project income to the DAO for budget management. We also hope for this to open governance to the community to participate in development, decision making, and spending actions. This depends on Smart Contract Integration.

Infrastructure

CCBN: we’re committed to fully Implementing CCBN – first as an add-on script, and later as part of core consensus code, deployed first to testnet and then to mainnet. CCBN is a decentralized approach to thwart secret mining attacks by notarizing blocks to independent blockchains, providing a way to resolve chain splits in favor of honest mining, which will greatly enhance on-chain security.

ElectrumG 4.0: it’s time to upgrade to the upstream Electrum 4.0 client and the latest ElectrumX Server with improved security, performance, and more features, including: PSBT support, payment server, native Android support.

Bitcoin Gold Core v21: continuing to follow upstream updates brings in value bugfixes and security improvements, and also introduces new features including schnorr signatures and taproot.

Refreshed Explorer: we’re deploying a new blockchain explorer (Blockbook and / or Bitcore v8) for improved stability, appearance, and usability.

Lightning Network

LN Client: we’ll deploy a stable BTG version of a mature lightning client to testnet and then mainnet (lnd, c-lightning, and/or eclair.) Even if fees don’t demand an LN infrastructure, a Lightning Network can still deliver greater efficiency on transactions.

ElectrumG Lightning Network Integration: after deploying new Lightning Network clients, we can enable Lighting Network within ElectrumG and connect it the Bitcoin Gold Lightning Network for near-instant transactions. This depends on both ElectrumG 4.0 and the LN Client.

BTCPay Integration of BTG Lightning Network: BTCPay, the best decentralized payment gateway, already supports BTG, so extending BTCPay to support BTG LN is next. This depends on the LN Client.

continue the discussion on the Bitcoin Gold Forum here

Things are Brewing at BTG

Edward Iskra — Wed, 03 Mar 2021 11:00:21 +0000

Hi!

We haven’t published in a while. It was a very long crypto winter, but our hibernation has come to an end.

We want you to know that we’ve been more active over the past year than a lot of people think.

For example, some of you know that BTG was used in 51% attacks again in January of 2020… but very few know that attacks continued for many months, and that those subsequent attacks failed because the BTG miners and community defeated them! And few realize that we’ve rolled out new technology that better protects our chain. The BTG project has been through a lot and has come out stronger for it – and we will be getting the details of that story out in the coming weeks.

We’ve also got some truly exciting new development brewing with new partners which we’re itching to share. You can expect to see regular updates published in the coming weeks on various projects that are underway with BTG, as well as recaps about what we’ve been through and accomplished in the many preceding months.

In light of all our new developments, we’re also working on a fully updated roadmap to share in the coming weeks.

We’re really looking forward to sharing all we’ve done and all we’re doing – BTG is building and growing, and we want you to know it!

BTG Core Wallet v0.17.3

Edward Iskra — Mon, 03 Aug 2020 20:00:58 +0000

We’re thrilled to announce BTG Core wallet v0.17.3!

This important release increases the safety of the BTG blockchain against deep-chain reversions by introducing rolling checkpoint finalization.

You can download the latest release here:

DOWNLOADS

Typical users can shut down the app, install the new version, and restart the app without issue, but it’s always best to backup everything, especially wallet.dat files, first. The v0.17.3 release notes are here.

Version v0.17.3 is a direct drop-in replacement for v0.17.1 or v0.17.2, but before upgrading from an older version like v0.15.2, exchanges, services, and anyone who writes code against the API should should check the full release notes for v0.17.1 as some APIs are deprecated and there are changes to way the config file is read.

Notable Changes

Rolling Checkpoint Finalization

A finalized block is one which the system considers non-replaceable. If a node receives a sudden chain of blocks which is a “fork” of the blockchain going back further than the last finalized block, the fork will be rejected. This makes long attack forks impossible.

Every time a new block comes in, the node will check if a previous block is newly eligible to be finalized. To ensure normal chain function and prevent potential problems, blocks aren’t eligible until some time passes (see the release notes for full details.) This acts like a traditional bitcoin checkpoint, but over time the finalized block rolls forward, hence the name. The important part is that deep reorganizations become impossible.

Most transactions – over 60% – will be in a finalized block when they have just 10 confirmations, but under some rare conditions, it may take 20 confirmations or more. (In 99.92% of the past 100,000 blocks, finalization would have happened by the 19th confirmation.)

RPC Changes

The new RPC call getfinalizedblockhash will report the blockhash of the most recent finalized block so that developers can code new behavior around this security information.

Looking forward as always,
The Bitcoin Gold Organization

Join the discussion and comment on this post at forum.btgofficial.org

Emergency update 0.17.2

CryptoDJ — Fri, 10 Jul 2020 20:33:46 +0000

DOWNLOADS

CRITICAL MESSAGE FROM BTG TEAM TO ALL POOLS, EXCHANGES, WALLETS, SERVICES, AND COMMUNITY RUNNING NODES

Please immediately upgrade your BTG Core full nodes to version 0.17.2, published July 2, 2020.

UPDATE: if you did not upgrade prior to July 10 at 14:00 UTC, you will also want to perform the command:
invalidateblock 00000000635620f22ba8694aea532d51619f8cd060f4e42e85db3cb3a5d1c29c

HOW TO UPGRADE:

1. You can use the pre-compiled binaries on Github, https://github.com/BTCGPU/BTCGPU/releases/tag/v0.17.2, or use the DOWNLOADS link you see above. Simply shut down your node, install the latest version, and start back up.

2. Manually upgrade from the latest code on the BTCGPU Github v0.17.2 tag (on 0.17 / master branch); full release notes here. If you are still at v0.15.2 and haven’t upgraded to 0.17, we have a backport version v0.15.3 tag (on 0.15 branch) including the same changes so you can keep your current configuration files.

(Note: there were potentially breaking changes in the configuration file between v0.15 and v0.17*)

You can run this command in the console or bgold-cli to ensure you are immediately on the honest chain:

invalidateblock 00000000635620f22ba8694aea532d51619f8cd060f4e42e85db3cb3a5d1c29c

Note: a strong majority of the honest mining pools have already upgraded their code a week ago, and continue to mine on the honest chain.

The BTG Explorer at https://explorer.btgofficial.org/ is on the honest chain. You can compare your most recent blockhash with the explorer to ensure you are on the honest chain.

To ask your node for the latest blockhash, give it the command:

getbestblockhash

And compare it to the latest block on the BTG Explorer at https://explorer.btgofficial.org/

====== EMERGENCY INFORMATION ======

We have just seen an extremely long attack chain of over 1300 blocks on July 10, 2020, against the BTG network which have been mined since July 1, 2020.

We detected this illicit activity early on and sent alerts to pools and exchanges to protect them; many closed their wallets over a week ago. We also supplied them with BTG version 0.17.2, which included a checkpoint at block 640650, hash 000000059ec8884fa4fbbdbe46c09cfb4ecba281dfa2351a05084e817c1200ae from July 2 at 2am UTC, mined by MiningPoolHub, a known honest block.

With this block checkpointed, the attacker’s chain could not take over, but this information was not public, and the attacker continued to mine. The attacker mined their secret chain for nearly 10 days, renting power from NiceHash to do so. Today, on July 10, the attacker released over 1300 blocks.

Because those attacking blocks are anchored at a block mined on July 1st (before the checkpoint), the honest pools and exchanges who are running the updated code automatically rejected the attacker’s chain.

It’s time for everyone else to upgrade their nodes to make sure they stay on the honest chain and to push your node onto the honest chain by using the simple command:

invalidateblock 00000000635620f22ba8694aea532d51619f8cd060f4e42e85db3cb3a5d1c29c

If you use the Bitcoin Gold GUI, you can enter this command in the Debug Console. If you use the command line daemon, simply give this command to bgold-cli:

bgold-cli invalidateblock 00000000635620f22ba8694aea532d51619f8cd060f4e42e85db3cb3a5d1c29c

This tells your node that the attacker’s version of the block at height 640650 invalid, and your node will immediately switch back to the honest version of the chain (perhaps after a short recalculation delay.)

The majority of honest pool hashpower continues to mine on the honest chain.

Questions can be addressed to the BTG team:
https://discord.gg/HmVUU6S

https://t.me/BitcoinGoldHQ

=====================

Attack chain details:

The attacking chain includes this block at height 640650:

00000000635620f22ba8694aea532d51619f8cd060f4e42e85db3cb3a5d1c29c

The honest block checkpointed in version 0.17.2 at height 640650:

000000059ec8884fa4fbbdbe46c09cfb4ecba281dfa2351a05084e817c1200ae

The attacker’s mining coinbase address was:
GcxCUDhfB7RwfScd96J24mKYPounRbVUq2

Their common ancestor, valid on both chains, is block 640568, hash 00000001ca8ac90d83f6f5da01ac96b7a017702a040953b93cda2e52b07385cd, https://explorer.btgofficial.org/insight/block/00000001ca8ac90d83f6f5da01ac96b7a017702a040953b93cda2e52b07385cd

The honest chained mined publicly, mining this block 640569 on July 1st:

https://explorer.btgofficial.org/insight/block/000000027cd13938b688121c272c523497f898bcc743f2793b3eaeaa7abd751a

The attacker mined secretly and withheld their block 640569 until July 10th, even though it was mined July 1st:
https://explorer.btgofficial.org/insight/block/000000047bd388dd484d9fdadece6b71aa13fa987bd2a283b68b9a2968465eac

If you have previously updated to BTG Core 0.17.2, you will still be on the honest chain, along with the major mining pools and exchanges.

If you have not yet updated and cannot update at this time, run the invalidateblock command as noted above to discard the attacker’s chain and put your node on the honest chain.

Want to comment? Join the Discourse here!

_____________________________________________

*These changes are aligned with the changes in Bitcoin Core v0.16 and v0.17 and include deprecated RPC commands which are now disabled by default, as well as the introduction of “sections” for testnet and regtest. If you must use deprecated RPCs that are now disabled, you can re-enable them in your config file with the appropriate deprecatedrpc flags. Commands that are not in a section for [test] or [regtest] will only apply to mainnet; see ReleaseNotes. If you use no deprecated commands and use your config file only for mainnet, there should be no breaking changes.

BTG Core Wallet v0.17.1

Edward Iskra — Mon, 02 Mar 2020 12:00:17 +0000

We’re thrilled to announce BTG Core wallet v0.17.1!

This major update to our Full Node wallet includes substantial new features for BTG and numerous bug fixes.

You can download the latest release by clicking below:

DOWNLOADS

Typical users can shut down their node, install the new version, and start their upgraded node without issue, but it’s always best to backup everything, especially wallet.dat files, first.

As promised, BTG strives to stay in-sync with Bitcoin Core’s developing features. BTG Core v0.17.1 parallels features of Bitcoin Core v0.17.1; developers and engineers can expect to see the same changes they already experienced upgrading Bitcoin Core from version 15 to versions 16/17.

IMPORTANT: Do not use v0.17.1 for in-place node upgrades in production environments without first testing and modifying! This version makes important changes to some APIs and the conf file (see release notes). Also, if you run a full transaction index (most individuals don’t choose to do this), the txindex db will be migrated, which can take many hours before the node is usable again.

Notable Changes

Compact Blocks

The most immediately important feature: Compact Blocks are fully implemented on BTG for the first time. This enhancement is critical to support Light Wallet protocols like Neutrino, which enable Lightning wallet and mobile wallet apps to work directly with the BTG network without having to download and store the whole blockchain.

Wallet Enhancements

The wallet and user interfaces now fully support Segwit addresses and full native Segwit support is enabled. All new wallets are HD-wallets (hierarchical deterministic – until now, users still had the option of making a new wallet that was not HD.)

PSBT Support

Bitcoin’s PSBT interchange format is introduced for BTG in this version, though it is not yet supported in the GUI. PSBT allows for transaction creation and signing to be coordinated among multiple parties (for hardware wallets, multisig systems, CoinJoin, etc.)

For Developers and Engineers

With this version, the RPC changes and new ‘label’ API you may know from Bitcoin Core versions 16 and 17 are now in place for your BTG nodes. Developers need to be aware that the deprecated ‘getinfo’ API is now retired in favor of more specific calls (see this about the API change) and pool operators need to be aware of the impact to stratum implementation (see this GitHub example for a guide. )

Summing Up

While this new version is not a hard fork and is not a required update (your current nodes will continue to work just fine), it will be a recommended upgrade for all users because of the many improvements. This updated version of the BTG Core Wallet delivers bug fixes, enhances performance, and delivers critical features that enable many new technologies that have been held back until now.

Looking forward as always,
The Bitcoin Gold Organization

Developers and interested parties can see the work on projects like neutrino, lnd, and other projects on the BTG project’s GitHub.

Join the discussion and comment on this post at forum.btgofficial.org

BTG Core Wallet v0.17.1 RC1

Edward Iskra — Wed, 18 Sep 2019 22:02:29 +0000

We’re thrilled to announce the Release Candidate of BTG Core wallet v0.17.1

This major update to our Full Node wallet includes substantial new features for BTG and numerous bug fixes.

You can download the latest release here:

DOWNLOADS

This release will likely become the final release (EDIT: the final release was made); it has been extensively tested, but remember this is still a Release Candidate and there may still be bugs to be discovered. Typical users can shut down their node, install the new version, and start their upgraded node without issue, but it’s always best to backup everything, especially wallet.dat files, first.

IMPORTANT: Do not use v0.17.1rc1 for in-place node upgrades in production environments without first testing and modifying! This version makes important changes to some APIs and the conf file (see release notes). Also, if you run a full transaction index (most individuals don’t choose to do this), the txindex db will be migrated, which can take many hours before the node is usable again.

Notable Changes

Compact Blocks

Wallet Enhancements

PSBT Support

For Developers and Engineers

Summing Up

Looking forward as always,
The Bitcoin Gold Organization

Developers and interested parties can see the work on projects like neutrino, lnd, and other projects on the BTG project’s GitHub.

Join the discussion and comment on this post at forum.btgofficial.org

2019 Progress Update #2

Edward Iskra — Thu, 31 Jan 2019 21:49:09 +0000

Development

Bitcoin Gold Core v0.17.1: Code is ready; now under testing (progress: 90%)
Compact Block Relay for BTG is implemented in BTG Core v0.17.1 and btgsuite (progress: 100%)
btgsuite: replay attack protection and Compact Block Relay being tested
Progress on Secret Mining defense research in partnership with Exchanges; preparing white paper and request for comments

Community

Venezuela Event “Se Habla Cripto! Caracas” scheduled for March 1st with Criptonoticias
BTG staff met Yuan Dao, chairman of China Zhongguancun Blockchain Industry Alliance and discussed the future of Bitcoin and blockchain economy

Ecosystem

Bidali Giftcard for Bitcoin Gold has launched, selling giftcards for more than 100 stores via BTG
BTG coverage initiated at TokenView.com
new BTG pool launched: equihash.pro

Join the discussion and comment on this post at forum.btgofficial.org

BTG Transparent: a Live Balance Page for the BTG Endowment

Edward Iskra — Thu, 20 Dec 2018 21:07:36 +0000

To make it easier for the Community to monitor the Bitcoin Gold Endowment, we’ve created a transparency site. Click the button to see the current balance.

BTG Endowment Transparency
Source Code: https://github.com/h4x3rotab/btg-transparent

What’s the Endowment?

The BTG Endowment supports the ongoing BTG project and is currently the only source of funding for expenses and salaries. All Endowment expenditures since it was launched have been made based on the decisions of the Board of the Bitcoin Gold organization. The Endowment is controlled by “four of six” multi-signature wallets, which ensures that no single individual can spend from the Endowment. (The initial Board was comprised of the six co-founders of the project, and the current Board membership is always publicly visible on the BTG Team page.)

no single individual can spend from the Endowment

Where is the Endowment?

These wallet addresses and balances have been public on the blockchain since they day they were mined (Nov 12, 2017). The addresses have also been published in a previous Endowment Wallet blog post.

This new website tracks the live unspent balance of the entire BTG Endowment, making it easy for anyone to check for themselves. Live balances for each wallet are pulled using the Insight API at the official BTG Explorer, but the balances can be checked at any explorer. The Live Unspent Total may take a moment to load because all individual wallet balances must be pulled, first.

making it easy for anyone to check for themselves

All the addresses

The list of wallet addresses includes our Flexible Spending wallet. To simplify administration, some funds are periodically moved from an Endowment wallet into the Flex wallet, which requires only 2 of 6 signatures to be further spent. Expense reimbursements, salaries, bounties, or other expenditures are then paid from the Flex wallet. Any funds in the Flex wallet are unspent and belong to the Endowment, and are shown at the top of the list.

The other 152 wallets in the list are the original BTG Endowment (“premine”) wallets which were mined in 2017. All of these wallets are “four of six” multi-sig wallets, with the six keys originally held by the six co-founders of the BTG project. In addition, 60% of the funds were mined into time-locked wallet addresses which gradually become available each month over the course of three years. (You’ll notice there are four wallets for unlocked funds, and then four wallets for each month’s time-locked funds – the wallets were broken into four groups with four different sets of six keys; this was insurance against the (extremely unlikely) event that some set of keys becomes exposed. See the Endowment Wallet blog post for exhaustive details on the mining process.)

Safety first!

This arrangement of wallets may seem overly complex at first glance, but the co-founders of the BTG project took the safety, security, and longevity of the mined funds very seriously. The multiple multi-sig wallets, time locks, and Board oversight ensure that the Endowment funds are not at risk.

multiple multi-sig wallets, time locks, and Board oversight ensure that the Endowment funds are not at risk

Making full transparency easier,
The Bitcoin Gold Organization

Join the discussion at forum.btgofficial.org to comment!

Bitcoin Gold (codename BTCGPU) began as a fork of Bitcoin after block height 491406 on Tue, 24 Oct 2017 01:17:35 GMT and began being mined as a separate chain at block height 491407 on Sun, 12 Nov 2017 13:34:01 GMT. As described in the original Bitcoin Gold Roadmap / Whitepaper, the mining rewards from the rapid first 8000 new blocks (100,000 BTG, or 0.476% of the 21 Million BTG cap), were collected into a set of wallet addresses to form a fund to support the ongoing costs of the Bitcoin Gold project. These 100,000 coins, sometimes called a “premine,” made up the BTG Endowment. All mining rewards after these first 8000 blocks accrue solely to the miners; no portion is diverted to the founders or the BTG project.

Leadership for Another Year

Edward Iskra — Mon, 19 Nov 2018 19:50:11 +0000

It has been just over a year since the Bitcoin Gold project launched. Since then, we’ve been striving to carefully shepherd our young project towards being a fair, transparent, and above all, decentralized cryptocurrency. As the Community is aware, leadership for the project is provided by a multi-person Board. That Board, which began with the six co-founders of the project, has consisted of seven members for most of the past year. Today we have some news about changes in the Board.

We want to share with the community that Jack Liao, who first inspired the Bitcoin Gold Project, is stepping down from the Board. His future involvement will be limited to an Advisory capacity. Jack Liao is a colorful individual and a force of personality who brought vision, energy, and an extensive network in the crypto community to the project. He was the first founder of the Bitcoin Gold project and helped build the team of six co-founders.

Jack inspired us and encouraged us to do something ambitious. For that, we will be eternally grateful. At this time, Jack wants to focus his time in other endeavors, encouraging competition and diversity in the crypto space, and his continuing as CEO of his company, LightningASIC. We wish him good luck in all his future endeavors.

We also want to share that fellow member of the Board and Lead Developer, H4x3rotab, has decided to publicly share his identity. While we will all still know him as H4, he is no longer anonymous. Hang Yin studied Computer Science at Fudan University and was, until recently, a Google software engineer. He has given up his role at Google to focus all his time into crypto-related work, especially the BTG project, and will continue to serve as a member of the Board and as Lead Developer.

The other members of the Board remain, which means five of the six members of the Board are also co-founders of the project (listed here.) Our overall team has grown a great deal since our start in 2017, bringing in fresh energy and ideas. We’re excited to see growing attention and new interest from the crypto developer community – we’ll always welcome new contributors. We’re looking forward to sharing the next year of our journey with our growing Community!

Gratefully, most sincerely, and with best wishes,
The Board of the Bitcoin Gold Organization
#1CPU1Vote

[EDIT: revised for clarity.]