Bithereum — The World’s First Hard Spork
By: Anita Sthankiya
The world’s first hard spork, created by forking the Bitcoin (BTC) blockchain and hard spooning the Ethereum (ETH) blockchain, will revolutionize Bitcoin mining as we know it. Similar to BTC, Bithereum Network (BTH) will function as a peer-to-peer (P2P) electronic cash system; however, BTH will also be aligning itself with Ethereum’s technological roadmap, centered around Proof-of-Stake mining, to equip it with optimal processing speeds and competitive transaction fees — a welcomed feature in the crypto community.
The current issues plaguing Bitcoin are the community schism, scalability, proof of work, and the rise of the mining cartel. The deep divide has pitted the once strong community against each other with no common ground on solutions for any of the current/future issues. In addition, the rise of ASICs and the 4 mining pools that dominate 61% of the hashpower create a level of centralization in consensus. Instead of sparring over on-chain and off-chain scaling solutions, Bithereum recognizes the importance of both, and will incorporate all-encompassing solutions.
Behind the Dubai-based company Bithereum Network, we have Sachit Singh and Scott Wade, who are working to create a transaction validation method that makes the blockchain network faster, more efficient, and cheaper to run.
Enter Proof of Stake mining: a transaction validation method that will eliminate the need for expensive hardware, mitigate high energy costs, prevent both ASICs/large pools from dominating, and increase the network security from 51% attacks, which have become quite prevalent amongst PoW coins. Issues faced in common PoS protocols are alleviated through Ethereum’s Casper protocol and its slashing conditions. Since a Casper contract can be created using Ethereum smart contracts, which is not the case with Bitcoin, Bithereum will leverage various opcodes and introduce new opcodes with built in functionality that mimics a Casper-like Proof of Stake model.
PoS will not only be an economical advancement by augmenting transaction speeds and reducing fees, but it will also reduce the massive amount of energy required for PoW mining. Since all miners won’t be racing to create each block, energy will only be consumed by the validators who get selected.
Bithereum will also be utilizing additional scaling solutions such as Lightning Network and Segwit to further facilitate large-scale data storing on each block, reducing transaction times and lowering costs.
Some of the most well known forks are Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin Gold, and while they have attempted to improve on a multitude of issues related to Bitcoin, they still continue to ignore a few underlying problems. There is still the issue with lack of space, and vulnerability with processing speed and costs. We all know that Blockchain is built on the idea of a consensus network, but the lack of this type of network in BTC has resulted in a mining war that only seems to be gaining steam. Popularity for mining has increased over the past few years, but only those with significant capital can participate in the PoW.
Now, before you jump on the Ethereum bandwagon, it should be noted that ETH has experienced its own set of unique barriers, unrelated to its blockchain functionality. Everywhere you look these days you are hearing about dApps and Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) that are anchored to ETH. But this massive influx of projects and altcoins has weighed down ETH from its true value because of constant sell pressure.
ETH was never intended to be a P2P transactable coin, it was designed to be used as a “fuel” on its platform. ICOs use ETH to raise capital for projects which has proved to be highly successful. Since the transactions currently process at a rate of 15 times per second, the transaction fees are insignificant compared to BTC, making it much more attractive to users. Thus resulting in the overwhelming amount of ICOs hitting the market in recent years.
With these problems in mind, Singh and Wade gathered a team of experts to come up with a viable solution. They looked at the current methods and decided to disrupt the current system, just like how blockchain is disrupting the world. They proposed the idea of bringing both problems together to create the ultimate solution. Thus BTH was created. Bithereum will be a coin that benefits both chains and it will be the world’s first hard spork.
First, Bitcoin will be hard-forked, facilitating fundamental changes to the protocol that will create a superior form of P2P currency. Next, Ethereum will be hard spooned by taking a snapshot of the existing account balances of the ETH holder, to then reward them in Bithereum. Unlike the other BTC forks, BTH will also be awarding all ETH holders with coins, giving them the ability to stake their coins in the future.
ETH holders can just simply follow the instructions on http://bithereum.network/ethredeem, to send a 0 ETH transaction to our publicly available smart contract. No private keys are exposed during the process and no actual ETH is sent anywhere, so rest assured, there is no malicious intent. We wish to make the process as safe and convenient as possible for each respective ETH holder, and will be releasing more in-depth blogs leading up to the launch.
Like what you’re hearing so far? Well, don’t worry, we’ll dive deeper into the technical components in our next blog post which will discuss our scaling solutions.
In the meantime, stay tuned with all things Bithereum and mark your calendars for August 13th, 2018, our Bounty Program release date! The Bounty will provide supporters with an opportunity to secure BTH in exchange for participating in tasks aimed at growing our networks.
Bithereum Network
Visit the Bithereum Network website to learn more. Stay-up-to date with our project news and announcements by following our social media channels: Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Join the conversation on our community channels: Telegram, and Reddit.
