Bitcoin Gold (BTG) Endowment Transparency¶
This page documents the complete BTG Endowment — 100,000 BTG mined in the first 8,000 blocks after the Bitcoin Gold fork. Every address, the mining process, and on-chain verification instructions are provided below.
Source of truth
The canonical reference for the endowment mining code is in the BTCGPU repository at src/chainparams.cpp. The address list and mining process described here are verified against the BTG blockchain via Blockbook Explorer and the community-maintained transparency project at h4x3rotab/btg-transparent.
Background¶
Bitcoin Gold (codename BTCGPU) began as a fork of Bitcoin after block height 491,406 on Tue, 24 Oct 2017 01:00 UTC and began being mined as a separate chain at block height 491,407 on Sun, 12 Nov 2017 13:00 UTC.
The mining rewards from the first 8,000 new blocks — 100,000 BTG total (12.5 BTG/block x 8,000 blocks) — were collected into a set of wallet addresses to form a fund to support the ongoing costs of the Bitcoin Gold project. These 100,000 coins, sometimes referred to as a "premine," constitute the BTG Endowment. All mining rewards after these first 8,000 blocks accrue solely to miners; no portion is diverted to founders or the project.
At the time of the fork, the block reward was 12.5 BTG. The reward later halved to 6.25 BTG (at block 700,000) and then to 3.125 BTG (at block 840,000).
Endowment wallets¶
All 152 endowment addresses are 4-of-6 multisig wallets, with the six keys originally held by the six co-founders of the BTG project. This means four signatures are required to move funds, and no single person can access the Endowment. In addition, 60% of the funds were placed in time-locked wallet addresses which would gradually become available over the course of three years.
The Flex Spending Wallet (AedgJfbGhjwtUEmfGv8qci9T4FBokxgKu1) is a 2-of-6 multisig that receives funds from the Endowment for operational expenses. Any funds in the Flex wallet are unspent and belong to the Endowment.
Primary Endowment Wallets (104 addresses)¶
These addresses received the main distribution of the endowment. Each links to its live balance on the Blockbook explorer.
Flex Spending Wallet (48 addresses)¶
These addresses were set aside for operational expenses. Funds are periodically moved from Endowment wallets into these Flex Spending wallets, which require 2-of-6 signatures for expenditure.
Mining process (Premine)¶
The 100,000 BTG endowment was mined at minimum difficulty (difficulty = 1, bits = powLimit) over 8,000 blocks (491,407 – 499,406). Each block reward was 12.5 BTG. The mining code is part of the BTCGPU source — see the CreateGenesisBlock and endowment logic in src/chainparams.cpp and the reference implementation at h4x3rotab/btg-transparent.
First 3,200 blocks (40,000 BTG)¶
The first 3,200 blocks were mined round-robin into four wallets:
| Block range | Address | BTG earned |
|---|---|---|
| 491,407, 491,411, 491,415 … | AQS1w7wyXQjPiE29LtA8ER8DbSQii4vSk7 |
10,000 |
| 491,408, 491,412, 491,416 … | AeTXqQdHLJGug6PdaQFvQZvjPM9E8wDV8u |
10,000 |
| 491,409, 491,413, 491,417 … | AMZdDm8jyZRUTxWCjwZsKbBAtdnyzyTqtN |
10,000 |
| 491,410, 491,414, 491,418 … | AV1WBeDbz27UXRy9PRveHtbnT8u2cmy1Fs |
10,000 |
Each wallet accumulated 800 blocks x 12.5 BTG = 10,000 BTG.
Remaining 4,800 blocks (60,000 BTG)¶
The remaining blocks were divided into 36 segments to unlock monthly over three years (plus a 37th segment with the remaining 12 blocks). Each segment was mined round-robin into four new wallet addresses that were time-locked for an additional month.
During the first 132 blocks of each segment, each of the four addresses received 33 block rewards (33 x 12.5 = 412.5 BTG). The 133rd block gave the first address an extra 12.5 BTG, bringing its total to 425 BTG. Total per segment: 425 + 412.5 + 412.5 + 412.5 = 1,662.5 BTG.
The final 12 blocks (499,395 – 499,406) were mined into four addresses at 37.5 BTG each (3 blocks x 12.5 BTG), bringing the grand total to exactly 100,000 BTG.
History¶
- 2017-10-24: Bitcoin block 491,406 — the last BTC block before the fork.
- 2017-11-12: Bitcoin Gold begins at block 491,407. The endowment mining process starts immediately at minimum difficulty.
- 2017-11-12: The mining code is published in the BTCGPU repository at tag
0.15.0.1. - 2018-07-03: Hard fork at block 536,200 — transition to Equihash-BTG (N=144, K=5, BgoldPoW) and LWMA DAA.
- ~2020: All time-locked funds become available after the 3-year release schedule completes.
- 2024-07-15: The
bitcoingold.orgdomain is hijacked. The original endowment blog post atbitcoingold.org/endowment-wallets/now returns 404.
The original endowment wallet details have been public on the blockchain since November 12, 2017. The description text above was originally published as a blog post, archived at Wayback Machine (snapshot from 2024-05-29).
The community-maintained reference implementation is at h4x3rotab/btg-transparent on GitHub.
The 2024-07-15 domain hijack
On 15 July 2024, the bitcoingold.org domain was hijacked. The original link https://bitcoingold.org/endowment-wallets/ is now a 404. Always use the archived version or this transparency page as the authoritative reference.
Verifying the endowment¶
Every endowment address can be independently verified on-chain using the Blockbook explorer:
- Open https://explorer.bitcoingold.services/
- Search for any address listed above, or visit directly:
https://explorer.bitcoingold.services/address/<address> - Verify the transaction history matches the expected coin amounts and block ranges described on this page.
- For the first 4,000 blocks (491,407 – 495,406), inspect individual blocks to confirm the coinbase outputs match the addresses listed above.
The first block after the fork is block 491,407. Its coinbase transaction should show the first endowment distribution. Each subsequent endowment block can be verified in the same manner.
For further detail, refer to the BTCGPU source code and the btg-transparent reference implementation.