What is Bitcoin Diamond?
Bitcoin Diamond (BCD), which brands itself as “The Better Bitcoin,” is another independent fork of BTC, which occurred in November of 2017. Unlike most other bitcoin forks, the Bitcoin Diamond fork will amplify the number of BCDs by a factor of ten, meaning there will ultimately be a total of 210 million BCDs created, as opposed to bitcoin’s 21 million. It also differs from bitcoin in that its blocks are 8 MBs in size compared to bitcoin’s 1 MB, and it also uses a different hashing algorithm, known as “Optimized X13.”
History of Bitcoin Diamond
Bitcoin Diamond was founded in Singapore by a small group of anonymous developers. The fork from the original bitcoin (BTC) occurred in block #495866, which was on November 24th, 2017. Its developers cite bitcoin’s high transaction fees, long confirmation times and a “high threshold” – or barrier to entry – as reasons why bitcoin needed to be forked in the matter in which it was for BCD. Only a day after hitting the markets (November 25th), Bitcoin Diamond saw an unprecidented $50 million dollars in average daily trading volume, however this demand has since settled down considerable. Regardless, it remains a “top 30” coin by total market capitalization as of April, 2018.
How Bitcoin Diamond Works
Bitcoin Diamond works just like bitcoin, in that it is a cryptographically secured digital currency, but offers some slight variations that render it different from BTC or any of its preceding forks (such as BCH and BTG). Because Bitcoin Diamond has a block size 8-fold bigger than that of bitcoin, its network has the potential to sustain over 3 million more transactions per day than that of bitcoin, meaning it is highly scalable and capable of sustaining an increased network demand.
As there were approximately 16.7 million bitcoins in existence at the time of the Bitcoin Diamond fork, this means that there were 167 million BCDs created on this date, which can be claimed by those who held bitcoins on this date and have access to the private keys of these accounts.. For more information on how to claim BCDs, please visit the Bitcoin Diamond homepage.
Another big difference between Bitcoin Diamond and the original bitcoin is the fact that BCD employs the use of a GPU-driven hashing algorithm (known as “Optimized X13”) as opposed to bitcoin’s SHA-256 algorithm. This means that ASIC mining equipment cannot be used to mine new BCDs (rendering them ASIC-resistant), and graphics cards are the main mining equipment used in securing new Bitcoin Diamond blocks.
Why Bitcoin Diamond?
- Like bitcoin, uses its own version of the Lighting Network to speed up transactions by performing grouped, off-chain transactions. BTCD payment channels which employ the Lightning Network allow for a massive network of transactions, allowing it be highly scalable with increasing demand.
- Bitcoin Diamond transaction fees are lower than the original bitcoin by design.
- A ten-fold increase in the total supply of Bitcoin Diamonds to be generated makes them cheaper and more readily supplied than bitcoin, meaning that they are easier and less costly to move around.
