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Network specification

The official protocol constants of the Bitcoin Gold network. This page is curated from the official BTCGPU wiki and the source code in BTCGPU/src/chainparams.cpp.

Source of truth

The reference specification is in the source code at src/chainparams.cpp and protocol constants in src/primitives/. This page summarises it for operators; if a number here conflicts with the code, the code is canonical.

Network magic bytes

Network Magic (hex)
Mainnet e1 47 6d 44
Testnet e2 48 6e 45

Default ports

Service Mainnet Testnet Signet
P2P 8338 18338 38338
RPC 8332 18332 38332

Do not confuse Bitcoin Gold with Bitcoin

Bitcoin Gold does not use Bitcoin's P2P port (8333). If you copy a bitcoin.conf, change port= to 8338 and rpcport= to 8332, or the process will fail to bind.

Protocol version

  • Protocol version: 70016
  • Compact blocks: compact block relay is supported since v0.17.1 and is automatically enabled between compatible peers.

Genesis blocks

Network Genesis hash
Mainnet 000000000019d6689c085ae165831e934ff763ae46a2a6c172b3f1b60a8ce26f
Testnet v3 00000000e0781ebe24b91eedc293adfea2f557b53ec379e78959de3853e6f9f6
Signet 00000008819873e925422c1ff0f99f7cc9bbb232af63a077a480a3633bee1ef6

DNS seeds

The current vSeeds lists in the official src/chainparams.cpp contain the following hostnames. Resolution status was checked on 2026-07-23.

Network Seed Status
Mainnet eu-dnsseed.bitcoingold-official.org Does not resolve
Mainnet dnsseed.btgofficial.org Does not resolve
Mainnet dnsseed.bitcoingold.dev Returns multiple A records
Mainnet dnsseed.4btg.org Does not resolve
Testnet v3 eu-test-dnsseed.bitcoingold-official.org Does not resolve
Testnet v3 test-dnsseed.btgofficial.org Does not resolve
Testnet v3 test-dnsseed.bitcoingold.dev Resolves to Cloudflare addresses, not a testnet peer list
Testnet v3 tdnsseed.4btg.org Does not resolve

dnsseed.bitcoingold.services is an additional community-operated mainnet seed. It is not compiled into bgoldd, but currently returns multiple A records.

Fixed fallback seeds

DNS seeds in vSeeds are manually listed in src/chainparams.cpp. They are separate from the fixed IP fallback list in src/chainparamsseeds.h, which is generated by contrib/seeds/generate-seeds.py.

The current source contains 141 mainnet and 6 testnet fixed-seed entries. Of the mainnet entries, 105 use the default P2P port 8338. The generated list has not been updated since 2019, so individual entries may no longer be reachable.

Operators can use seednode= or addnode= in bitcoingold.conf when additional bootstrap peers are required.

Address formats

Type Mainnet prefix Version byte Notes
P2PKH (legacy) G 0x26 (38) Example: GYf8nyo1c8oWsHzbvL1fD3Ckgg68UzBi5J
P2SH (legacy) A 0x17 (23)
Bech32 (SegWit) btg1... — HRP btg for mainnet, tbtg for testnet

HD wallet (BIP44)

Field Value
Coin type 156 (hex 0x8000009c)
Reference slip-0044
Recommended path m/84'/156'/0'/0/0 (native SegWit P2WPKH)

URI scheme

  • URI prefix: bitcoingold:
  • Signed message magic: Bitcoin Gold Signed Message:\n

Replay protection

Bitcoin Gold uses strong two-way SIGHASH_FORKID replay protection.

  • ForkID: 79
  • All post-fork transactions use the BIP143 SIGHASH signing style.
  • Pre-fork signing logic is preserved in the code only to validate pre-fork transactions.

Proof of work

Parameter Value
Algorithm Equihash-BTG
N, K 144, 5
Personalization string BgoldPoW
Solution size 100 bytes
Memory per mining thread ~2.5 GB
Hard-fork height (Equihash-BTG N=144 K=5, BgoldPoW) 536,200 (July 2018)
Hard-fork height (LWMA DAA) 536,200 (same hardfork)

Difficulty adjustment uses Zawy's LWMA with a 45-block averaging window (post-536,200).

Hard fork / Endowment

  • First Bitcoin Gold block: 491,407
  • Endowment: 8,000 blocks (491,407 – 499,406) at minimum difficulty (difficulty = 1, bits = powLimit)
  • Endowment output: 4-of-6 multisig, time-locked (40% available, 60% released monthly over 3 years)

Signet

Signet is a BIP325 test network included in Bitcoin Gold's v0.21.3-beta codebase. A valid solution to the configured signet challenge is required in addition to proof of work, giving the challenge signers control over block production.

Property Signet (default)
CLI flag -signet
Network magic 0a 03 cf 40 for the default challenge; custom challenges produce different magic bytes
P2P port 38338
RPC port 38332
Default seeds 178.128.221.177, 2a01:7c8:d005:390::5, and the Onion seed listed in src/chainparams.cpp
Block challenge Default 1-of-2 multisig challenge script. Override with -signetchallenge=<hex>.

Use -signetseednode=<host>:<port> to replace the default seed list. Signet provides more controlled and predictable testing conditions than permissionless testnet, but reorganizations and interruptions remain possible. A custom signet lets its operators choose the challenge script and seed nodes.

Domain history (important notice)

The 2024-07-15 hijack

On 15 July 2024, the bitcoingold.org domain was hijacked and pointed to an attacker-controlled account. The current official domain is btgofficial.org.

Always verify releases via the official GitHub releases page (BTCGPU/BTCGPU) and the official domain btgofficial.org — never trust any URL ending in bitcoingold.org.

References