For over three days now I have been making research trying to understand in proper terms about how a fork coin could be claimed, and how to prepare for it. I have found out that the process involved in claiming a fork coin is not just as easy as it is written. If users are not properly guided many might end up losing their hard earned BCH while chasing a new coin. The complications involved in claiming a new coin requires a lot of technicality that most users of BCH can't handle. Hence it will proper to check if the fork coin, should it happen worth going through the hassle of claiming its.
There are some things that must be put into consideration before deciding to chase a newly fork coin. The claiming process is usually complicated, and you risk losing your coins if you don’t know exactly what you’re doing. It is a fact that users will receive an equivalent amount of the new coin for the BCH they have on their wallet as at the time of the fork. This may seem tempting yet tricky. We should remember that cryptocurrencies comes in digits. It is the number that is being considered not the value in dollar. Let say you’re holding 0.5 BCH, and you’re eligible for 0.5 BCHA. The value of BCH and BCHA are not the same, though you got same amount in digits. Judging by the pre-fork activities going on at some major exchanges at the moment, the value given to the would be forked coin is between $20 to $25 per coin. If the price remain the same after the fork, should it goes through, it means you need to have 1 BCH to receive 1 BCHA which will give you between $20 to $25. How many users have up to 1 BCH in their wallet. I’m not sure the immediate profit is worth the risk. This is what my calculations have been able to come out with. And it is left for you to make a personal decision regarding the fork coin.
There are several other technical aspects to be considered before making a decision to go chasing a new forked coin. Some of the technical aspects are as follows below.
Fork Height. Fork height refer to the time and date when the fork took place as measured in Bitcoin cash height. Basically, any address in a Bitcoin cash wallet that have any value at the time of the fork will be eligible for forkcoin Airdrops. A Bitcoin cash wallet address that received value after the fork won’t be eligible for any forkcoins. So if your wallet have no value before the fork, you are not eligible to claim any free coin. Technically, it is advised to use a new wallet when trying to claim a fork coin for security reasons and to avoid wallet malware since you are going to be using your private keys. The issue of getting private keys is another technical issue most users can not handle.
What will be the Reward Ratio? As stated earlier, Forkcoins are often awarded in direct proportion to the amount of the original coin in each address (i.e ratio 1:1). If this ratio is to be applied, I don't think the ABC coming forked coin is what the chase except you have huge amount of BCH in your wallet.
Private Keys issues. Claiming a fork coin usually the use of private keys. To claim a forkcoins, you will have to export the private keys from your old wallet. Note that private keys is different from seed words and it takes some technical knowledge to export it from a wallet. The complications in this is that certain wallets, especially hardware wallets, don’t allow users to export private keys. Though there are other ways to get the private keys with the help of additional tool where you can use your seed words to derive your private keys. My take on this is, do this expected forked coin worth all the stress?
The process of claiming a fork coin will not be easy for anyone who have no technical knowledge about it. Since everyone with a BCH wallet that have any value before the time of the fork can receive the forked coin, it will be advisable to wait and let things play out rather than moving funds from one untested wallet or exchanges to the other. After the forked dust are gone, all you will need do is to learn how to sprint your coins if your wallet support the fork. One thing to bear in mind is that a time for a hardfork is a time scammers prey at will.
Going by the above information, do you think the ABC expected forked coin worth the chase? Let me know what you think about it, and if there is other technical issues you know about claiming a forked coin do not hesitate to share it on the comments section.
Lovely article