In this article we shed light on what the creators of Bitcoin Diamond want, what the plans of the developers are and how the new cryptocurrency can be useful.
It may seem that cryptocurrency is a very difficult topic to understand and comprehend as the terminology was and still is being formed along the way. Imagine the confusion that inevitably arises in the media when trying to highlight certain events in the cryptoworld - say, hard forking. In fact, it’s just a simple change in the cryptocurrency protocol, which makes previously unacceptable blocks or transactions in the system permissible.
Hardfork is a split from the previous version of blockchain, and the nodes of the network with the older version of the protocol are no longer supported by the system.
Such splits are, to some extent, a form of market democracy. Supporters of each protocol get a chance to recognize their cryptocurrency. For example, the famous hardfork happened after breaking into DAO, when the team of Ethereum (ETH) tried to cancel transactions in order to return users their stolen funds. Part of the community did not agree with this decision, which led to the birth of a new cryptocurrency called Ethereum Classic (ETC).
Bitcoin (EXANTE: Bitcoin) is not an exception, and hardforks can happen at any time. The last of them spawned Bitcoin Diamond (BCD), which split at block 495 866, having formed its own chain of blocks. It took place on November 24, 2017 thanks to the efforts of Team EVEY and Team 007, two mining pools, which, according to Reuters, "were not happy with some of the major downsides of Bitcoin."
Team BCD's mission
Bitcoin (BTC), as you may know, is the most popular cryptocurrency, however has its own flaws. Operations with Bitcoin are processed for too long, and eventually become quite expensive. This is due to the fact that BTC blocks are limited to 1 MB, which corresponds to about three transactions per second.
In the BCD system, the block size limitation is increased to 8 MB - this will increase the transactional capacity, and the blocks will be generated five times faster.
The growing cost of transactions in the BTC network limits the practical application of cryptocurrency. BCD also seeks to reduce the costs associated with transactions. As the Executive Director of BCD said at a press conference:
“Our primary objective is to lower the cost for participation thresholds by reducing the transaction fees and the cost of participation. The total amount of Bitcoin Diamond is 10 times as much of Bitcoin, which translates into reduction of the cost for new participation and reduction of the thresholds.”
Now BTC transactions are open to the public - everyone can see what amount is in the wallet of another person and track their transactions. BCD will encrypt the amount and balance, which will ensure greater confidentiality.
BCD on exchanges
According to the CoinTelegraph, at the time of writing, BCD was traded on 33 exchanges around the world, including Binance, OKEX, Huobi.Pro and Bit-Z. EXX.com also announced Bitcoin Diamond futures trading. In addition, Bitcoin Diamond Foundation claims that BCD will support at least six wallets, including BitGo, Bitpie, Coldlar and ATOKEN.
The foundation also announced that other pioneers of cryptocurrency will join the BCD advisers, which is likely to lead to an increase in its popularity.
Developing BCD
When Bitcoin Diamond becomes more popular, the team will begin to implement the development plan. The medium-term plan is limited to the time frame from December 2017 to December 2018. It was according to this plan, based on the links between the development teams of BCD, that hardfork took place on November 24.
It is planned due this month to create Bitcoin Diamond mining network, wallet, nodes code and API, and add open source code to GitHub. The BCD will be available for mining by both full-scale node clients and mining pools. Three pools will support the BCD mining, which will begin after the release of the network. BCD will support GPU mining - both AMD and NVIDIA.
It is also planned to upgrade the algorithms for encryption of the BCD main circuit, which encrypts both transaction amounts and user balance.
Benefits of Bitcoin Diamond
Is Bitcoin Diamond better than the original Bitcoin? Depends on who you ask.
The declared and ultimate goal of Bitcoin Diamond is to become the "best cryptocurrency", which will not suffer from the lack of confidentiality, slow confirmation of transactions or high entry threshold.
The total supply of Bitcoin Diamond would be 210 million - 10 times more than bitcoins. 170 million of these coins would be on the market, and the rest would be reserved for the community: they will go to reward miners. Bitcoin Diamond is also being criticized, mostly for the anonymity of the team, but we should not forget that the identity of the Bitcoin founder also remains a mystery. Anonymity should not prevent the acceptance of the cryptocurrency, and soon the markets will show whether people appreciate the Bitcoin Diamond.