BITCOIN DIAMOND (BCD)
Bitcoin was designed to be a peer to peer cryptocurrency. To transfer value, to replace fiat, and to be a ‘better’ cross-border currency. However, due to its high popularity and yet limited scalability, Bitcoin transaction became much slower and the transaction fees got way too high. Many Bitcoin supporters felt disillusioned with this and chose to fork the original chain. One of the more popular forks is called Bitcoin Diamond.
Just like the developers of other Bitcoin forks, Bitcoin Diamond (BCD) developers believed Bitcoin was too slow and the transaction fees were too expensive. Due to these reasons, Bitcoin Diamond developers chose to fork Bitcoin and eventually created their own chain. With this article, we will explore the history of Bitcoin Diamond, what purpose does it serve, and the future of the project.
History of Bitcoin Diamond
Image source: https://hacked.com/bitcoin-diamond-pumps-again-106-price-surge-in-five-minutes/
Just like how we have mentioned above, Bitcoin Diamond developers were not satisfied with the slowness and the expensive transaction fees of the original Bitcoin. They also believed the original Bitcoin does not serve Satoshi’s goal anymore. So, at the predetermined height of block 495886, Bitcoin Diamond officially became a fork of Bitcoin. The official birth date of Bitcoin Diamond is November 24th, 2017.
The Bitcoin Developers team is a co-op effort between team 007 and team EVEY. They made several key changes to the protocol. They believe these key changes have successfully made Bitcoin Diamond the peer-to-peer electronic cash system. Just like Bitcoin’s original purpose. Not only that, but Bitcoin Diamond team also promised that mining will be more accessible and the whole process will be more decentralized.
All Bitcoin holders before the fork got their own BCD coins at the time of the fork itself. The ratio that they got was 1BTC : 10BCD. It means, if they had 1 Bitcoin before the fork and they kept holding their BTC until after the fork, they would have received 10 BCD coins for the reward.
During the first few days of its availability on crypto exchanges, BCD had a good trading price. It was traded at more than $60 each. However, it has been going down ever since. BCD might need some type of ‘groundbreaking’ development along with luck before it can climb the crypto market again. The bad thing is, in the crypto market, usually you get more supporters and developers when you can have a good position in the crypto market cap rankings. So, it’s like a chicken and egg situation.
Purpose of Bitcoin Diamond
image source: https://cryptomode.com/bitcoin-diamond-price-pumps-as-bithumb-announces-bcd-trading/
The purpose of Bitcoin Diamond (BCD) is to be decentralized digital cash. Just like the original vision of Satoshi Nakamoto (founder of Bitcoin), decentralized digital currency is supposedly used as real money. Not just as a ‘store of value’. That’s the core vision of Bitcoin Diamond as well. They believe the original Bitcoin has moved so far away from its original purpose and cannot be used as a payment tool anymore.
Bitcoin Diamond developers try to honor Satoshi’s original vision. Bitcoin Diamond can achieve 100 transactions per second (TPS) and the block size is up to 8MB. The average block time for Bitcoin Diamond network is reportedly 10 minutes and the difficulty of the network will adjust by itself each 12 hours.
Due to all these differences, it is actually possible to use Bitcoin Diamond as a peer-to-peer electronic cash. Meanwhile, Bitcoin is too slow and too expensive to serve the same purpose. Bitcoin team also actively promotes the use of BCD coins to ‘shop’ at online stores. You can imagine Bitcoin Diamond just like Dash or Bitcoin Cash. The speed and the scalability are the main selling points of Bitcoin Diamond.
Also, Bitcoin Diamond (BCD) utilizes the X13 proof-of-work (PoW) algorithm to discourage ASIC miners. They believe individual miners with their own GPUs must be prioritized, unlike ASIC miners who are very dominant in the mining space of the original Bitcoin blockchain.
Controversies
image source: https://hacked.com/bitcoin-diamond-bcd-and-binance-a-256-pump-amid-the-global-dump/
Unfortunately, Bitcoin Diamond does not shy away from controversies. It has been accused as a pump and dump coin since last year. The most controversial moment happened last year (2018) when it was listed on Binance for the first time. The price suddenly ‘spiked’ 256% and then it got ‘dumped’ shortly afterward. Many people accuse the same team of operating the pump and dump scheme on both Gate.io and Binance. Several of them even accused Binance itself was involved in the dumping event. At the time, Binance reacted to this controversy by ‘suspending’ all BCD coins withdrawal.
And this event, despite the most controversial, was not the first time for BCD. The project has been accused multiple times as one of the ‘favorite’ pump and dump coins. And at the time of this post writing, BCD daily trading volume has gone down really significantly. Due to low liquidity, suddenly there is no pump or dump anymore. The price just stays really low. It looks like the rumor is true (rumor about the coin was only pumped to be dumped afterward). When the volume is gone, most of these same big traders refuse to come back and buy the coins again. Most big traders of BCD coin last year were interested in it only for the pump and dump.
The controversy does not stop at these accusations. The core developers were also accused of being greedy and did not introduce anything new. There are other forks of Bitcoin protocol and several of them might even work better than BCD to be used as ‘electronic cash’. But, according to these accusations, BCD developers chose to fork Bitcoin only to enrich themselves. Of course, BCD core team does not agree with these accusations.
Working Products And Adoptions
image source: https://www.bcdbazaar.com/
The good thing about Bitcoin Diamond is that the developers are pushing for adoption. There are two important elements to the Bitcoin Diamond ecosystem that are directly integrated into the ecosystem. BCD Pay and BCD Bazaar.
BCD Pay is basically an all-in-one Bitcoin Diamond app. Its main purpose is to “shop with BCD” which will redirect you to a list of items where you can pay directly with BCD. You can also try the app’s “Scan and Pay” where you can instantly send and receive BCD with just QR code scanning. You can also check crypto news and predict the crypto movement with this app.
BCD Bazaar is a marketplace where you can buy physical goods with your BCD coins and your BCD Pay application. For example, you can buy a Sony Alpha A5100 with BCD coins. While many other crypto projects’ core team rarely push for this type of website, but BCD core team actively promote BCD Bazaar among the crypto community
However, despite the efforts to increase adoptions, BCDBazaar does not seem to have a lot of web visitors. According to Similarweb, BCDBazaar has a really low global ranking in terms of internet traffic. And probably this is also the reason why BCD does not really take off because its marketplace (which is promoted officially by the core team) is just too empty and has too little traffic.
BCD On The Crypto Market
image source: https://coinmarketcap.com
At the time of this post writing, one BCD coin is worth $0.454382 USD or 0.00005697 BTC. It is ranked 53rd in the cryptocurrency rankings by market cap. Its market cap is $84,739,006 USD and its daily trading volume is higher than $2 million. BCD has a strong position although it is not doing so well compared to some other Bitcoin forks, such as BCH, BSV, or BTG.
And just like other Bitcoin forks, you can find BCD on most crypto exchanges like Binance, Gate.io, OKEx, Huobi, Bithumb, and many others. Apparently, BCD’s price action movement is pretty much decided by the movements of other cryptocurrencies, especially other more popular altcoins.
Competitors
There are many direct competitors to BCD, especially knowing that BCD is just another peer-to-peer cryptocurrency. The most obvious examples of BCD competitors are NANO, DASH, BCH, BSV, XRP, XLM, and of course the original Bitcoin. These coins are considered the competitors to Bitcoin Diamond because they are also ‘seen’ as fast coins with very cheap transaction fees.
Even those platforms that are used to create decentralized apps (dApps) like EOS, Tron, or NEO can also compete with BCD. Most cryptocurrencies can always be used for cross-border transactions. Therefore, they can be seen as the competitors of BCD. Another honorary mention is IOTA. It’s also fast and feeless.
Conclusion
Bitcoin Diamond is a fast cryptocurrency with low transaction fees. Unfortunately, the comparison with the original Bitcoin alone won’t cut it. There are also other speedy cryptocurrencies with very cheap transaction fees. In order for Bitcoin Diamond to be massively adopted, first, it needs to have some ‘standout’ features compared to other fast-and-cheap cryptocurrencies. The core team itself has been working since May of this year to focus on web-based reactive programming languages. It seems these new implementations might be able to help BCD come back to the top and compete directly with the top altcoins projects.