2022 marked one of the biggest crypto markets collapses: losing about $1 trillion in value between May and June confirmed people’s fears of cryptos’ volatility. The hard fork of Bitcoin, BTG, is a perfect example.
BTG swung from highs of $539.72 in October 2017 to an abysmal value of $2.54 in late 2020. While things have since improved for BTG, a lot of traders are still asking themselves if they should trade BTG to BTC or keep faith in the coin.
Read on to find out more about BTG and the potential it holds in the world of cryptocurrencies.
Bitcoin Gold Key Features
Established in 2017, BTG was aimed at the re-decentralization of Bitcoin. The number of Bitcoin miners was reducing significantly, favoring a small group of miners. BTG allows more people to be miners where less powerful machines can be used. This way, the network is more decentralized compared to BTC.
Some of the top features of BTG include:
Decentralization
BTG boasts of decentralization, where it uses a consensus algorithm, making the project completely community-driven with no central controlling power/ unit.
Anonymity
Users can buy and sell BTG anonymously, which provides an additional layer of security. It is important to mention that the developers don’t publish transaction details or wallet addresses seeking to ensure anonymity.
Speed
Bitcoin allows 5 TPS while Bitcoin Gold allows 27 TPS. This means the BTG transaction rate is over five times the transaction rate of BTC.
How Does Bitcoin Gold Differ from Bitcoin?
| # | Bitcoin | Bitcoin Gold |
|---|---|---|
| Hashing Function | The SHA-256 mining algorithm | The Equihash mining algorithm |
| Mining | ASIC miners | ASIC miner-resistant |
| Protocol | SecureSigs | SegWit |
| In Circulation | 18.8 million | 17.5 million |
BTG Performance
BTG has experienced a bearish trend starting from the beginning of 2022 to August, having lost 30%. In early January 2022, BTG was trading at an average price of about $40. According to CoinMarketCap, as of 9th August BTG is trading at $28.03. Its live market cap is at $510 million, ranking at position 82.
The BTG market experienced a bullish trend between 1st July 2022, closing at $15.14, and 29th July, closing at 35.21. After that, the bearish trend picked up, dropping to $33.09 by 30th July and, finally, to the current $28.03 price close of 9th August. The highest average BTG price in June was $22, May $30, April $43, and February $36.
Price History
Between 23rd October and 2nd November 2017, BTG’s price dropped from $539.72 to $127.51 — recording a 77% decrease in 10 days. This was followed by a bull rally that pushed BTG’s price to $453.45 on 20th December 2017. However, the price dropped again by 45%, ending 2017 at $251.51.
The bearish trend continued through January 2019 to about $9.4 in early February 2019. Afterward, the price spiked to $31.39 in June. Then, it experienced a strong retracement, which saw it drop to $4.92 around mid-December before closing the year 2019 at $5.29. In 2020, BTG’s price movement was neutral and was at $8.41 by end of the year.
BTG benefitted from the early 2021 crypto market bullish trend, shooting up from $8.49 to about $140.3 by 6th May. This was an increase of over 1,550%. Just as fast, the price dropped back to $34 in June and closed the year 2021 at $40.6.
Amid the conflict between Ukraine and Russia in 2022, the crypto market collapsed. BTG price experienced a downtrend as well, recording a year’s lowest price at $28.42 in February. Then, BTG price spiked to $43.87 recorded on 23rd March 2022.
BTG Price Potential
CoinPriceForecast sees BTG at $90 by 2030, which is not far off from DigitalCoinPrice’s $119.38. These are signs that things will be looking good for BTG in the long term.
Is BTG Worth Investing in?
While BTG has been affected by security issues and scams, which tainted its image, its founders have done a great job patching the security concerns and positioning the coin as a great prospect in the altcoins market.
Since its launch, it has always had its reputation pegged to the reputation of BTC, its ‘parent,’ BTG’s future will greatly depend on how BTC performs from here on. Instead of another BTG vs BTC war (like the ETH vs ETC battle), expect BTG’s progress to coincide with BTC’s, making it a great investment opportunity.
