Post-Mine

What is Post-Mine?

Post-Mine is a term used to describe the process undertaken by developers to create new coins after the initial launch of a cryptocurrency but before public mining becomes accessible. This allows the development team to generate additional coins without facing competition from external parties.

Post-Mining typically takes place between the snapshot date, which is when token balances are counted to facilitate the dropping or swapping of a newly created coin on exchanges, and the release of the code for outsiders to mine new coins.

An example of post-mining can be seen in the case of Bitcoin Gold (BTG), where the project team produced 100,000 BTG between the snapshot date and the start of public mining.

The founding team allocated 5,000 BTG to each of Bitcoin Gold’s six core members, while the remaining coins were intended for the growth of the newly created currency’s ecosystem. However, some individuals criticized this allocation of 100,000 BTG as being excessive for that purpose.

Coinbase did not support the launch of BTG due to the developers’ failure to make the code available for public review. The exchange considered this to be a significant security risk, which resulted in a negative sentiment within the community towards BTG.

As a consequence, BTG experienced a 51% attack, and despite the team’s efforts to implement an update to its mining algorithm, the damage had already been done.