<p>During 2017 and 2018 there were a number of Bitcoin hard forks starting with Bitcoin Cash (BCH) but quickly followed by other altcoins (Bitcoin Satoshi Vision, Bitcoin Gold, Bitcoin Diamond etc).</p>
<p>If you owned Bitcoin on the Bitcoin blockchain you would receive the same amount on these hard forked chains. As with the vast majority of altcoins, they relied on branding and marketing to pump up the price in the short term. The technical fundamentals were terrible, developer contributions fizzled out and they are all (without exception) worth today a tiny percentage of what they worth back in 2017, 2018.</p>
<p>It is possible this could happen again under a new guise but because they have collapsed in price and have little maintenance or developer contributions the credibility of Bitcoin hard forked altcoins is rock bottom. I wouldn't wait around expecting this to happen again anytime soon but I don't have a crystal ball.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-11-11T11:32:24.793Z
2020-11-11T11:32:24.793Z
Michael Folkson
<p>A couple of years ago, there was this really unexpected and bizarre thing for a few months (or weeks?) where a bunch of Bitcoin hard forks were created, such as &quot;Bitcoin Gold&quot;, whose only purpose seemed to be to allow for Bitcoin havers to gain extra Bitcoin. I was one of those who took advantage of this, and this is how it worked (grossly simplified, with tons of more problems/steps in practice):</p>
<ol>
<li>I downloaded Bitcoin Gold's version of Bitcoin Core into a VM and let it sync its entire blockchain. This took many days.</li>
<li>On my real machine, with the real Bitcoin Core, I created a new wallet.dat and transferred all my Bitcoin from my old wallet.dat to this new one.</li>
<li>I took my now empty old wallet.dat and put it inside the VM and started Bitcoin Gold.</li>
<li>It now saw as many Bitcoins (Bitcoin Gold) as I had when Bitcoin Gold forked.</li>
<li>I transferred these Bitcoin Gold to an exchange (before they all forced photo id).</li>
<li>I traded them for actual Bitcoin, because crazy people existed who actually wanted these &quot;worthless&quot; hardfork-coins.</li>
<li>I transferred the Bitcoin from the exchange to my real Bitcoin Core.</li>
<li>I now had slightly more Bitcoin than before I started!</li>
</ol>
<p>Doing this over and over, with each one of these weird &quot;hard forks&quot;, I was able to gain several entire Bitcoins. While a ton of work, and super scary (it felt like I could lose all my real Bitcoin at any moment...), I found this really fascinating and cool. I had very few Bitcoin in my wallet when the forks happened, sadly, but imagine if you already had 100 BTC or something from the start... You'd have gotten tons of extra coins if you had done this! I bet many did.</p>
<p>Sadly, these &quot;hard forks&quot; died out pretty quickly, and this small window of opportunity was then over, seemingly forever. It never seems to have happened again, or, if it did, I certainly have missed it completely.</p>
<p>Since I find it utterly impossible to make money (whether it be fiat or Bitcoin), this was a golden (no pun intended) opportunity for me to gain some extra BTC.</p>
<p>How would I know if something similar happens again? Was I just incredibly lucky to have somehow heard of this while it happened? I frankly can't stand a single Bitcoin news source (that I know of) as they are 99-100% all about cryptic (no pun intended) BS and fluff and almost never say a word about Bitcoin itself in any meaningful manner.</p>
<p>I guess it's stupid to sit around and wait/hope for this to happen again, but I'm not even sure if this was widely understood/known, and I no longer have any means to get Bitcoin news other than Slashdot &quot;articles&quot;, which are very unlikely to report on anything other than how badly Bitcoin is doing at the moment.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-11-11T11:37:14.493Z
Everyone here are unpaid volunteers. Please do not abuse any of them or accuse them of being mentally ill. This is a StackExchange for Bitcoin. Altcoins are free to set up their own StackExchange. Personally I think Bitcoin hard forks are just about within the remit of this StackExchange but I am sympathetic to those who have the opposing view.
Michael Folkson
CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-11-11T18:34:05.063Z
I downvoted, and you deserve a reason why: I consider these forks to be highly unethical at best, and many are probably actual outright scams. It benefits those who sell at the right time (which includes its creators), and a loss for others. Participation only worsens this. So to me, your question reads like "when is there a successful scam I can participate in?"; I don't know the answer, but I consider it offtopic because it isn't about the technology underlying Bitcoin.
Pieter Wuille
<bitcoin-core><altcoin><blockchain-fork><bitcoin-gold><news-coverage>
Has/will there ever been any new "Bitcoin Gold rush" similar to the hard forks that allowed you to "trick" your way to new coins?
Andrei
# Has/will there ever been any new "Bitcoin Gold rush" similar to the hard forks that allowed you to "trick" your way to new coins?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2020-11-11)

A couple of years ago, there was this really unexpected and bizarre thing for a few months (or weeks?) where a bunch of Bitcoin hard forks were created, such as "Bitcoin Gold", whose only purpose seemed to be to allow for Bitcoin havers to gain extra Bitcoin. I was one of those who took advantage of this, and this is how it worked (grossly simplified, with tons of more problems/steps in practice):

1. I downloaded Bitcoin Gold's version of Bitcoin Core into a VM and let it sync its entire blockchain. This took many days.
2. On my real machine, with the real Bitcoin Core, I created a new wallet.dat and transferred all my Bitcoin from my old wallet.dat to this new one.
3. I took my now empty old wallet.dat and put it inside the VM and started Bitcoin Gold.
4. It now saw as many Bitcoins (Bitcoin Gold) as I had when Bitcoin Gold forked.
5. I transferred these Bitcoin Gold to an exchange (before they all forced photo id).
6. I traded them for actual Bitcoin, because crazy people existed who actually wanted these "worthless" hardfork-coins.
7. I transferred the Bitcoin from the exchange to my real Bitcoin Core.
8. I now had slightly more Bitcoin than before I started!

Doing this over and over, with each one of these weird "hard forks", I was able to gain several entire Bitcoins. While a ton of work, and super scary (it felt like I could lose all my real Bitcoin at any moment...), I found this really fascinating and cool. I had very few Bitcoin in my wallet when the forks happened, sadly, but imagine if you already had 100 BTC or something from the start... You'd have gotten tons of extra coins if you had done this! I bet many did.

Sadly, these "hard forks" died out pretty quickly, and this small window of opportunity was then over, seemingly forever. It never seems to have happened again, or, if it did, I certainly have missed it completely.

Since I find it utterly impossible to make money (whether it be fiat or Bitcoin), this was a golden (no pun intended) opportunity for me to gain some extra BTC.

How would I know if something similar happens again? Was I just incredibly lucky to have somehow heard of this while it happened? I frankly can't stand a single Bitcoin news source (that I know of) as they are 99-100% all about cryptic (no pun intended) BS and fluff and almost never say a word about Bitcoin itself in any meaningful manner.

I guess it's stupid to sit around and wait/hope for this to happen again, but I'm not even sure if this was widely understood/known, and I no longer have any means to get Bitcoin news other than Slashdot "articles", which are very unlikely to report on anything other than how badly Bitcoin is doing at the moment.

**Tags:** bitcoin-core, altcoin, blockchain-fork, bitcoin-gold, news-coverage

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: Everyone here are unpaid volunteers. Please do not abuse any of them or accuse them of being mentally ill. This is a StackExchange for Bitcoin. Altcoins are free to set up their own StackExchange. Personally I think Bitcoin hard forks are just about within the remit of this StackExchange but I am sympathetic to those who have the opposing view.  
> **username_2**: I downvoted, and you deserve a reason why: I consider these forks to be highly unethical at best, and many are probably actual outright scams. It benefits those who sell at the right time (which includes its creators), and a loss for others. Participation only worsens this. So to me, your question reads like "when is there a successful scam I can participate in?"; I don't know the answer, but I consider it offtopic because it isn't about the technology underlying Bitcoin.  

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## 1 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2020-11-11. Score: 2

During 2017 and 2018 there were a number of Bitcoin hard forks starting with Bitcoin Cash (BCH) but quickly followed by other altcoins (Bitcoin Satoshi Vision, Bitcoin Gold, Bitcoin Diamond etc).

If you owned Bitcoin on the Bitcoin blockchain you would receive the same amount on these hard forked chains. As with the vast majority of altcoins, they relied on branding and marketing to pump up the price in the short term. The technical fundamentals were terrible, developer contributions fizzled out and they are all (without exception) worth today a tiny percentage of what they worth back in 2017, 2018.

It is possible this could happen again under a new guise but because they have collapsed in price and have little maintenance or developer contributions the credibility of Bitcoin hard forked altcoins is rock bottom. I wouldn't wait around expecting this to happen again anytime soon but I don't have a crystal ball.


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