BTG Fork is Now Active, But…

UPDATE OCT 27: We’ve successfully taken a snapshot of all players accounts prior to the fork, so if you had BTC deposited with us at the time of the snapshot you will be receiving your BTG once more documentation is out for us to offer them. Please be patient while we figure this out, as currently it is not on us but rather on the Bitcoin Gold team to complete development so that we can properly distribute BTG to our players. Currently, there aren’t even any BTG wallets available to the public, so it may take some time. Unfortunately, we cannot provide an exact timeline for BTG distribution, however please stay tuned to our blog for updates on when and how we will be distributing BTG to our players.

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It looks like the developers over at Bitcoin Gold overshot the approximate date of reaching block 491407 on the original Bitcoin blockchain by about 3 days. The date was originally set for some time in November, but they updated to Oct 25 as the most likely date of reaching the block. In case you’re confused, the date that kept coming out of every company that had a stake in BTG was Oct 25 which essentially ended up being dubbed the “official (but unofficial) day of the fork”. Although the majority of the information stated the approximated date for the fork, in reality it was solely based on when miners would reach/mine block 491407 on the blockchain. 

⚂  Wait, So Has It Forked Yet or Not?

To be clear, the BITCOIN GOLD HAS ALREADY FORKED, so if you’re one of the ones confused about this whole BTG ordeal thinking you still have a few days to store your BTC for the fork – Sorry, the anticipated fork has already occurred, which ended up happening on October 24th 10am UTC. If you had BTC in a proper wallet that you own the private keys to (ie. Ledger/Trezor Hardwallet, Electrum, Armory), or you had them stored at an exchange or other service that has stated that they will be adopting BTG once more dev info and two-way replay is implemented, then all you need to do at this point is BE PATIENT. Remember, BTG is a completely new coin, so there is new dev that needs to take place before BTG can be distributed, whether that’s sending  BTG from a wallet (which don’t even exist at the time of writing this) or from an exchange, or any other service that plans on offering it to their customers for that matter. 

Other Hurdles Before BTG Can Actually Start Being Traded/Used

And of course, you’ll need a BTG wallet to hold your shiny new Bitcoin Gold coins, especially since the address structure is completely different from BTC/BCH. This was done to mitigate accidental sends of one coin to another since your wallet would alert you that it was an invalid address. Although this is a step in the right direction, the vast number of companies/exchanges/services willing to adopt BTG in one fashion or another will most likely be holding off on doing so at least immediately speaking due to the lack of two-way replay protection. Without this key functionality, you could potentially lose BTC while sending BTG. Even with other lesser forms of replay protection that are integrated with BTG currently, most of the larger exchanges/sites will most likely halt BTG integration into their system until they see that two-way replay protection has been implemented. Especially if the exchange or service is transacting large amounts of BTC, this is a must to ensure that no BTC are lost or stolen due to the addition of BTG. Any liability due to security holes for a cryptocurrency based business is one of the quickest ways to shut it down. Again, you’ll need to be a little more patient this time around compared to the BCH fork timeline. Wallets aren’t even slated to go public until November 1st, and its pretty clear that BTG are worthless without a wallet to hold them in. So everyone, please keep this in mind and be patient! Its still unclear due to so many incomplete sources on whether its safe to send/use the BTC wallet/service that you plan on receiving your BTG at, however its most likely safe to do so as the forked block has, well, forked already and all has been already recorded on both blocks (and continue to do so, but don’t quote us on this – Do your research before moving any coins – We aren’t liable for what happens based on your decisions regarding either BTC or BTG). 

What About SafeDice?

Although we have announced that we will be honoring BTG claims for players who had funds in their SD wallet before the fork, at this point we cannot set a specific date on when we will be distributing these coins. We have an idea of how we will be distributing them, but we still need more cooperation from the coin devs before we can say for sure. Again, all of this will ultimately depend on development/feature completion on Bitcoin Gold Teams end since we can only integrate what is provided to us given the circumstances. It’s difficult for us to even provide a concrete answer at this point on whether its safe to move your coins from not just us or any wallet for that matter since we do not control how the new forked blockchain works or whether it has any bugs that need to be worked out, however its most likely safe to say that by now your balances have been recorded on both blocks and you should be able to move your BTC freely without causing issues with BTG once its actually distributed. We cannot make guarantees on this since, again, its up to the BTG team on how things work (they haven’t made any official announcements on whether wallet holders can move their BTC yet safely), so if you want to be 100% safe we recommend you wait until further official news comes out regarding this subject. We should see more confidence in BCH use and dev around November 1st, however given how little documentation is out currently despite the fact that the fork already occurred, hope for the best but prepare for delays and/or issues with Bitcoin Gold. The more forks that occur, the more it seems like they are substitutes to ICOs conceived in countries such as China who have declared country-wide bans on ICO’s as a whole. With this being said, we recommend treating any existing and upcoming forks as investments on the higher end of the risk scale.

– thesourc3 (SD Mod)