Bitcoin Diamond Review: Beginners guide
Bitcoin Diamond (BCD): A Bitcoin clone with bigger block sizes
Industry type: Decentralised economy.
What is Bitcoin Diamond? Bitcoin Diamond is a hard-fork of the Bitcoin network that made its debut in November 2017. It was created in response to issues with transaction speeds and mining on the Bitcoin network. Its main differences are larger block sizes, increased privacy features through unknown techniques, and GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) focused mining to protect the blockchain from ASIC (Applications-Specific Integrated Circuit) domination.
What gives it value?
- It delivers faster transaction speeds than the original Bitcoin.
- It has a limited supply of 270 million BCD coins.
- It is friendly to GPU miners who are unable to mine the original Bitcoin network due to superior ASIC (Applications-Specific Integrated Circuit) mining equipment.
- Bitcoin owners before the fork are entitled to 10 BCD token per BTC token.
Interesting Technology:
- Bitcoin Diamond has a block size of 8MB compared to Bitcoin’s 1MB block. Block sizes play a key role in Bitcoin’s scalability issues due to network traffic congestion in peak periods.
- Segregated Witness (SegWit) is a process that separates the unnecessary 50% of the data needed to prove the validity of a transaction. As a result, more transactions can be recorded in each block on the blockchain.
- The network is mined with the x13 hashing algorithm to support GPU mining and prevent ASIC mining. This is a notable difference to the original Bitcoin which has become dominated by ASIC mining equipment and raised concerns over the centralisation of corporate ASIC mining facilities.
- Privacy features were one of the key development claims to Bitcoin Diamond’s superiority to the original Bitcoin. The added privacy was said to be achievable through ‘extra cryptography’, but after almost a year since the fork the Bitcoin developers never implemented privacy features and have since dropped them for other developments.
Notable team:
- The founders and team are anonymous except for two names that were given prior to the fork but have since been retracted. The two names were ‘Team Evey’ and ‘Team 007’ that are rumoured to be Bitcoin miners from Hong Kong, who were tired of the ASIC domination and network congestion on the Bitcoin network and so created Bitcoin Diamond.
Notable partnerships:
- SwftCoin, a cross chain crypto transfer platform has partnered with Bitcoin Diamond for its users to trade with the BCD token.
Bitcoin Diamond Review: The Good
- With bigger block sizes than the original Bitcoin and with the use of SegWit it is technically faster than Bitcoin.
- Its x13 algorithm enables GPU miners and excludes ASIC miners.
Bitcoin Diamond Review: The Not So Good
- Its website, social media accounts, and press releases are terrible. So much so that there is a lack of information available on the project.
- Improved privacy features, one of the projects key promises, were never established and have since been dropped for other developments.
- The coin has been ‘pumped and dumped’ multiple times. This may have something to do with BTC holders receiving 10 BCD for every 1 BTC when the blockchain was forked.
- It’s founders and the team are anonymous.
- The increased total coin supply reduces the value compared to the original Bitcoin.
Future Roadmap:
- According to the Bitcoin Diamond’s roadmap the implementation of the Lightning network, ‘finishing mainchain’ and ‘building BCD application ecology’ are scheduled for late 2018, and ‘Better Bitcoin’ is scheduled for the beginning of 2019.
CONCLUSION:
In my opinion for this Bitcoin Diamond review, you should stay away. It is true that the original Bitcoin has problems with corporatised mining and slow transactions speeds at peak periods which gave Bitcoin Diamond a legitimate reason to hard-fork with the promise of a becoming a ‘better Bitcoin’. However, with its disappointing marketing, public relations, failed promises, multiple pump and dumps, and anonymous team, Bitcoin Diamond seems more like an amateur coder’s practice project than an innovation that comes anywhere near offering a ‘better Bitcoin.’
Bitcoin Diamond Price:
The current Bitcoin Diamond price, market cap and charts.
Overseas exchanges:
Binance: www.binance.com
Huobi: www.huobi.com
YoBit: www.yobit.net
HitBTC: www.hitbtc.com
Where to store this crypto:
Desktop wallet: http://www.electrumdiamond.org/
Similar coins:
Bitcoin (BTC) – The world’s first decentralised cryptocurrency.
Bitcoin Cash (BCH) – A Bitcoin clone with bigger block sizes.
Bitcoin Gold (BCG) – A Bitcoin clone for fairer mining.
Digibyte (DGB) – A bitcoin clone with superior features.
Further information:
Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/BitcoinDiamond/
Website: http://btcd.io/#/