USD market launch for siacoin (SC) on October 29

Scheduled hard-fork on October 31, 2018

Hard-fork to give the power of mining back to the community

The Seattle based crytpocurrency exchange Bittrex delivered encouraging news for the siacoin (SC) community on October 25, 2018, as the exchange tweeted that come October 29, the crypto trading platform will launch a US dollar (USD) market for siacoin.

Direct Trading with the USD on Bittrex

The launch of a USD marketplace will enable the traders to directly deal in SC/USD pair.

A development of such nature (pairing with a fiat currency) is expected to bring more liquidity and increase the trading volume for the SC token. It will also make it easier for new entrants in the cryptocurrency market to directly buy/sell siacoin tokens with the US dollar.

On October 29 we’re launching a US dollar (USD) market for Siacoin (SC). Eligible #Bittrex accounts created before October 1 are already enabled for USD trading. New user or want to deposit/withdraw USD? Request here: https://t.co/KA248OA2Bz pic.twitter.com/xD9kWqzR8T — Bittrex (@BittrexExchange) October 24, 2018

The timing of such an announcement makes it all the more interesting as the siacoin community is slated to undergo a hard-fork on October 31, which would entirely brick the Bitmain and Innosilicon ASICs from mining activities.

The decision to reset the Sia Proof-of-Work function was made public through a blog post by Sia’s lead developer David Vorick on October 1, 2018. Vovrick stated that the purpose behind the scheduled hard-fork is to allow dissenters split off to a separate blockchain.

Vorick added,

“All users who want to stay on the Sia network need to upgrade prior to the hard fork date. All major exchanges will be participating in the hard fork.”

Post hard-fork, the newly implemented code will make sure that only Obelisk designed ASIC processors can be used to mine the network for block incentives.

What Caused the Hard-fork?

The story behind the hard-fork stretches as back as June 2017, when the Sia project chose ASICs miners over GPUs – giving justification that GPU-based mining could make the project an easy prey for hack attacks.

It was also decided that Sia’s parent company Nebulous would create a subsidiary called Obelisk to produce and sell ASICs only for siacoin (SC) mining.

However, things took a dramatic turn when mining behemoths including Bitmain and Innosilicon began developing mining equipment to mine siacoin without any official permission from the siacoin community.

The entry of mining giants sparked tension within the team, and nullified the hard-work and money put in by the loyal siacoin community.

The hard-fork aims to give the power of mining back to the users and subsequently move towards a more decentralized ecosystem, as opposed to centralized mining powerhouses like Bitmain.

At press time, siacoin (SC) is ranked 32nd on CoinMarketCap, with the price of siacoin sitting at $0.007 and total market cap. slightly above $279 million.