Bitcoin is a revolutionary invention. It is the first large scale, peer to peer, open-source database but unlike most databases where the main function are Create, Read, Update and Delete blockchains only allow create and read.
With the addition of strong cryptography this allow you to show your username (public key) while not worrying that you password (private key) will be cracked, at least until SHA256 is cracked.
This has created an opportunity for anybody in the know to copy and paste the entire database, usernames and passwords included.
Bitcoin, like any currency is a network effect tool. Take some Australian dollars to the United States and your average merchant will laugh at you and tell you to exchange into US dollars first unless you offer to pay them in the form of a horrible exchange rate.
Lets imagine for a second a rouge group of super hackers decided to make US dollars gold and anyone who had digital US dollars in their bank account will get an equal number of US dollars gold. Legal implications aside, what will you be able to purchase with your new USDG? What will it be worth relative to USD?
Firstly the number of people supporting this new overnight currency with be a tiny fraction compared to the original. Only a small number of USD users will even care so the network effect is terrible compared to USD.
Now imagine if Facebook had an open database of all its users and their interactions. If anyone could copy and paste this and change the HTML and CSS so its looks a bit different, perhaps more minimalist and called it Minibook.com will this had a chance of beating Facebook.com? I would suggest no. Facebook is the project getting all the best developers, scientists and technology people to create actual innovation.
This is what really concerns me with Bitcoin Gold, we have a bunch of Chinese spending money to promote themselves and project owners using an idea they didn’t come up but will control using airdrop or copy and pasting all the usernames and passwords to market their project.
At the same time there is a snowballs chance in hell that these super hackers improve the value of the currency greater than the value of USD.
Groups of people attempting hard forks is very very good for the system as a whole but when it is just used for the cheap marketing stunt that MBA business types love to pull all the time *cough* dot com *cough* it just takes away from the real science of making a currency do more with less.
