BCash/Bitcoin (BCH)1 cash did it on August 1st 2017, Bitcoin2x/Segwit2x(B2X) does it at block 494,784, which is currently estimated to occur on November 16th.
For better or worse, creating a new cryptocurrency by forking off of Bitcoin seems to be this season’s fashion, and seeing the relative success of the previous and current attempts (lingering at prices of several percent of that of Bitcoin, which gives it a market cap in the billions of dollar), it is also a trend which is quite likely going to carry over into the next year. And since this topic comes up again and again at the meetups and the chat groups organized by the BAS, it is certainly worthwhile to capture some of the most relevant and interesting points in written words. I’ll say some general things about forks of Bitcoin and how to benefit from them, but -since this has been splendidly covered elsewhere- spend most of the text with the specific changes of the Bitcoin Gold fork.
Where’s my dividend?
While of course technically wrong, a lot of Bitcoin holders consider the coins that they sell on the fork-chain as some sort of dividend, making Bitcoin a positive-carry product. In fact, it is more of money falling out of the sky into the hands of people who own Bitcoin, thus the commonly used phrase ‘airdrop’. This sounds nice, and if you play it correctly it is, but there is a lot of things that can go wrong while claiming the dividend, you get exposed to risk of loss, in the worst case even of your Bitcoin and you definitely risk your monetary privacy. What you have to do depends on what you are trying to achive
Source/More: Bitcoin Gold – Do we need it and if yes, how many? — Bitcoin Association Switzerland
