TREZOR Statement on Bitcoin Gold Fork

Last update: 20 November 2017

SatoshiLabs
Trezor Blog
Published in
4 min readOct 23, 2017

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Bitcoin Gold support and claim tool have been released to the TREZOR Wallet. Please go to the Wallet first to update your firmware. For the full guide, refer to this article:

Bitcoin Gold is a fork of Bitcoin, sharing its history up until the block height 491407 (around October 24, 6am UTC). If you have held bitcoins on TREZOR before this block, you will have the same bitcoin gold balance as your bitcoin balance.

In other words, Bitcoin Gold is an altcoin, using Bitcoin’s history similarly to the case of Bitcoin Cash. However, Bitcoin Gold did not launch immediately at the point when the chains diverged.

Will TREZOR device support Bitcoin Gold?

Yes, TREZOR (the device) will support Bitcoin Gold. If you have held bitcoins on your TREZOR at the moment of the fork (block height 491407), you will also receive bitcoin gold on your TREZOR after the mainnet of BTG goes live. Both new and legacy accounts are supported in bitcoin gold. If you simply wish to hold BTC and BTG, there is no further action required from you.

To spend BTG, you will need to update your firmware.

With TREZOR, you own your private keys (in form of the seed), therefore you have control over all of your coins, including forked coins.

Will TREZOR Wallet support Bitcoin Gold?

UPDATE: Bitcoin Gold seems to have implemented replay protection. We will now begin developing support in the Wallet and a method to split the coins. Bitcoin Gold network is not live yet, only the testnet is running. The automated coin-splitting tool will, most likely, be adapted to support BTG too.

UPDATE (13 Nov): Bitcoin Gold finally released their source code allowing us to develop our infrastructure. The network is, however, not stable yet. More information will come as we progress.

UPDATE (16 Nov): We have successfully synchronized our Bitcoin Gold backend server and are now steps away from releasing full support. BTG will be included in the next firmware update, after the implementation is thoroughly tested by our team.

UPDATE (17 Nov): Release is planned for Monday, 20 Nov.

UPDATE (20 Nov): Bitcoin Gold support and claim tool released.

Replay protection (Update: Implemented)

Why is replay protection important?

Replay protection prevents a transaction on the Bitcoin Gold chain from being re-transmitted on the Bitcoin chain and vice versa. As Bitcoin Gold is a fork of Bitcoin, the transaction format, the signatures, etc. are the same. A transaction on one chain could be copied to the other chain and will be valid, possibly leading to unintended loss of coins.

In other words, if BTG does not have replay protection, spending on one chain will cause you to send the same amount of coins on the other chain. Even after the fork, spending BTC can lead to loss of BTG and vice versa.

Moreover, the lack of replay protection prevents us from creating a simple, one-click tool for coin splitting, like the one we made for Bitcoin Cash.

I need access to BTG immediately, how do I do that? (Updated)

UPDATE: You can access your Bitcoin Gold wallet in the TREZOR Wallet.

You can import your seed into a third-party wallet to reach your bitcoin gold (not-recommended, high risk). Alternatively, you can use a third-party wallet with support for TREZOR hardware, bypassing the need to import a seed. A third option is to send your bitcoins to a third-party wallet, to be credited with bitcoin gold after the fork, but you will need to do this before the fork date.

However, we would like to warn you that this could be dangerous for the following reasons:

  1. Without replay protection, if you send your bitcoin gold, you will also send your bitcoins away, leading to a loss of coins.
  2. If you import your seed into a malicious wallet, the attacker can access ALL your coins, incl. other altcoins, saved under your seed.
  3. By importing your seed into any third-party wallet, you are compromising the security of your seed and thus your TREZOR.

Will TREZOR Wallet support Bitcoin Gold if it implements replay protection? (Update: Support implemented.)

We will make all of our efforts to develop support for Bitcoin Gold, but we will not do so if it will risk your coins. Therefore, we need to see replay protection as a part of the Bitcoin Gold codebase first. Since the work on the code started so late, we will probably not be ready for the launch day of Bitcoin Gold.

We have been putting pressure on the team and voiced our requirements openly on Twitter and on GitHub, so we hope that replay protection will become a reality.

The ongoing discussion is available here:

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TREZOR is the most trusted and ubiquitous hardware wallet in the world. It offers an unmatched security for cryptocurrencies, password management, Second Factor, while maintaining an absolute ease-of-use, whether you are a security expert or a brand new user.

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Links

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