On October 23, 2017, there was a Bitcoin blockchain fork. A new cryptocurrency, Bitcoin Gold or BTG, was created cloning the existing blockchain of Bitcoin to get it started. For every Bitcoin you own, you were given an equal sum of Bitcoin Gold. The thinking behind Bitcoin Gold tries to solve the problems of Bitcoin mining. Among other things, Bitcoin mining uses an incredible amount of energy and is very wasteful of computing power as well. It remains to be seen what value Bitcoin Gold has. It’s too early to know. Moreover, it was reported that the site was down due to a denial of service attack. We’ll know in a couple of weeks how it fares.
Remember how a shortened game of Monopoly was played, when you didn’t have a lot of time? The properties were dealt out to all the players at the beginning of the game so that you didn’t have to go around the board, again and again, buying properties one at a time. Bitcoin Gold is sort of the same thing; Bitcoin with a jumpstart.