In order to ensure the safety of the Bitcoin ecosystem, Bitcoin Gold has implemented full replay protection, an essential feature that protects users’ coins from being spent unintentionally.
Bitcoin Gold has just implemented a solution called SIGHASH_FORK_ID replay protection. It is an effective two-way replay protection mechanism that enforces a new algorithm to calculate the hash of a transaction so that all new Bitcoin transactions will be invalid on Bitcoin Gold blockchain and vice versa. This makes replaying transactions impossible.
https://github.com/BTCGPU/BTCGPU/pull/109
What is a transaction replay?
In the context of a Bitcoin fork, a replay happens when a transaction is valid on both sides of the fork. So a transaction can be broadcast on both chains after the fork and be a valid transaction and confirm on both. This means that if you intend on sending coins on one fork, you could accidentally end up sending your coins on the other fork as well since someone else could take your transaction and replay.
What is a replay protection?
Replay protection is a safety feature that makes sure that transactions on one chain are invalid on the other chain, thus preventing transaction replay and the possible resulting loss of funds. Replay protection can be achieved in multiple ways; anything from having a blacklisted address or output type (e.g. if an output to address X is in the transaction, consider it invalid) to changing the signature scheme to changing the transaction format entirely.
Timeline
Completed
- Equihash PoW change
- Difficulty adjustment algorithm
- Network & pool integration
- SIGHASH_FORK_ID replay protection
- Unique address format
- Local Testnet succesful
Services before mainnet deployment
- Bitcoin Gold Official Mining Guide
- Bitcoin Gold Blockchain Official Explorer
- Bitcoin Gold Official Web Forum
- Bitcoin Gold Wallet Guide
Next steps
- Launch public testnet (*)
- Adjust network parameters
- Prepare for mainnet launch
- Deploy mainnet
- Electrum fork
- 3rd party Wallets and Exchanges integration
- Decentralized mining starts
(*) Bitcoin Gold team will deploy a public testnet opens to miners from all over the world in a few hours. To learn more about testnet, please stay tuned in #mining Slack Channel.
More info in next hours.
About BTG
Bitcoin Gold is a community-led project to create a hard fork of Bitcoin to a new proof-of-work algorithm to make Bitcoin mining decentralized again. Satoshi Nakamoto’s idealistic vision of “one CPU one vote” has been replaced by a reality where the manufacture and distribution of mining equipment has become dominated by a very small number of powerful entities, some of whom have engaged in abusive practices against individual miners and the Bitcoin network as a whole. Bitcoin Gold will provide an opportunity for countless new people around the world to participate in the mining process with widely-available consumer hardware that is manufactured and distributed by reputable mainstream corporations. A more decentralized, democratic mining infrastructure is more resilient and more in line with Satoshi’s original vision.