It’s a good time for an update about the Bitcoin Gold ecosystem.
Exchanges
There are currently 45 Bitcoin Gold markets on 24 exchanges listed at CoinMarketCap [EDIT: now 48 markets on 25 exchanges], and more have announced they’re working on opening up to BTG. At the time of writing, the top five global exchanges by dollar volume (according to CoinMarketCap’s ranking) are Bitfinex, Bittrex, Bithumb, Coinbase/GDAX, and Binance. Bitcoin Gold is traded on all but one of these (the exception is Coinbase/GDAX, which still trades exclusively in Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Litecoin.)
Wallets
There are multiple Bitcoin Gold wallets available and more being developed. The available wallets include the top two hardware wallets (Ledger and Trezor), several desktop wallets, multiple market-leading mobile wallets, and several online wallets. Reputable hardware wallets are, of course, the most secure, while web wallets require more caution.
Pools
There are well over a dozen active pools available for miners who don’t wish to solo mine. It was previously of some concern that the largest pool was well over half the total network hashpower, but the distribution has been improving over time as the smaller pools grew. More decentralization is good news for the ecosystem.
Explorers
There are multiple independent blockchain explorers available. These include BitInfoCharts, BTGEXPLORER.COM, BTGEXPLORER.NET, BTGexp.com, Trezor’s Insight explorer, and Bitcoin Gold Blocks – and more are under development. (Disclosure: BTGEXPLORER.COM was developed with the support of Bitcoin Gold, but runs as an entirely independent entity.)
Nodes
At the time of writing, there are well over 300 full nodes distributed worldwide. The top ten countries are (alphabetically) Bulgaria, Canada, China, France, Germany, Netherlands, Russia, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States – but we’re also in Brazil, South Africa, Australia – we’re on every continent except Antarctica!
The Bitcoin Gold Blockchain
The key element, the Bitcoin Gold blockchain, has been very stable.
The network has been generating blocks as designed after the expected initial burst in the first 24 hours after Launch. Since then, the overall network hash rate and difficulty levels have been fluctuating, as expected, but our difficulty adjustment algorithm rapidly compensates for these conditions and has maintained an average time to find blocks close to the ten-minute target every day since November 12th.
Final Words
It’s worth noting that in the time since our launch, some exchanges have had occasional deposit or withdrawal difficulties. These were infrastructure problems related to heavy user load or had other external causes, and while they sometimes affected BTG, they also affected many other cryptocurrencies. Through all of these periods, the Bitcoin Gold blockchain has been stable and performed properly; no unusual delays are attributable to the BTG blockchain. Any Consumer Exchange or Market Exchange which is having difficulties implementing wallet support for Bitcoin Gold is encouraged to reach out to our development team for assistance; we’ll be happy to help.
We continue to work with a variety of future members of our decentralized Ecosystem to help them get on board, and we’re encouraged by the number of projects and integrations that are in various pipelines.
These are exciting times!
Sincerely,
The Bitcoin Gold Community
#1CPU1Vote