Hard Forks are becoming more commonplace as the cryptocurrency industry evolves. Rather than create a completely new blockchain from scratch, developers find that the process of hard forking may give them an advantage. In addition to a pre-defined – but customizable – code base, the process of hard forking creates a class of early adopters. Those that held the forked coin are the first generation for a new project – and often vital for gaining momentum.
Two of the top hard forks coming in the near future are BitcoinZeroX and Dogethereum. BitcoinZeroX endeavors to combine the privacy-optional platform of HexxCoin with the legacy staying power of the core Bitcoin (BTC) blockchain. Meanwhile, Dogethereum looks to add smart contract functionality to the surprisingly resilient Dogecoin (DOGE) blockchain.
BitcoinZeroX: Privacy on Demand
An extension of the HexxCoin project, BitcoinZeroX intends to ‘merge’ the HexxCoin and Bitcoin blockchains to create a new entity. This new project, BitcoinZeroX, would allow holders to transfer their funds anonymously, if they so choose. Rather than assuming the user has a need for anonymity, the blockchain allows them to decide individually for each transaction. This frees up a considerable amount of resources on the blockchain – the costly process of masking the coins is only performed if necessary.
To power this process, BitcoinZeroX will incorporate the Zerocoin Protocol. Developed by a team at John Hopkins University, the protocol depends on zero-knowledge proofs to create an anonymous pool of temporary coins. Users of the protocol can provide proof of their ownership without exposing any information to the other side of the transaction. Through this, BitcoinZeroX can be traded privately with confidence.
Dogethereum: Brining Smart Contracts to the Doge
Dogecoin is a long-time favorite of the cryptocurrency community. Their light hearted nature and fairly consistent charity work made them stand out among the crowd of pure business coins. Dogecoin initially began as a ‘joke’ coin based off of the Luckycoin code base – which itself hard forked from Litecoin (LTC). However, the ‘joke’ coin is now universally considered a valid cryptocurrency.
Now, a team of developers are hard forking the DogeCoin blockchain to create Dogethereum. The new coin would bring all of the features of Dogecoin, while adding smart contract functionality. The addition of smart contracts would allow entirely Doge based decentralized applications – greatly furthering the potential of the coin. While many of the dApps will likely be jokes – Doge has a history of turning a profit with humor.
Article By: Adam Stone
