Frequently asked questions

No. In the whitepaper’s words, BitcoinII is “not a fork of the Bitcoin chain, not a sidechain, and not a derivative token.” It started from its own genesis block (Dec 12, 2024) and does not share Bitcoin’s history, so owning BTC does not give you any BC2, and no balances were copied over.

BC2 addresses use exactly the same formats as Bitcoin addresses (1…, 3… and bc1…). BC2 addresses look identical to Bitcoin addresses. Always confirm the network before sending. Use BC2 wallet software, and never send coins between the two networks: coins sent to the wrong network are very likely lost.

No premine (per the whitepaper): the chain launched from a clean genesis block and every coin is mined. TODO(verify): whether there was an ICO. The whitepaper does not mention one.

Two ways:

• Mine it with SHA-256 hardware. See Mine.
• Buy it on the NonKYC.io exchange: BC2/USDT or BC2/BTC. Then withdraw it to your own wallet.

See the buy page for a short guide.

BC2 is listed on CoinGecko and CoinMarketCap. This is not financial advice. The BitcoinII project does not run or control any exchange. Only put in what you can afford to lose.

BC2 is mined only with SHA-256 ASIC miners: Antminer, Whatsminer and Avalon machines (older generations included) and Bitaxe home miners. The network has been mined with SHA-256 ASICs since its first weeks. See Mine.

No. BitcoinII does not support merged mining, so your SHA-256 hashrate goes to one chain or the other at any moment. What you can do is run BitcoinII Core alongside Bitcoin Core on the same machine, with separate data directories and ports.

ShockWave is BitcoinII’s per-block difficulty adjustment. It shipped in v31.1.0 and has been active since block 57,750 (mined Aug 29, 2026). Instead of retargeting once every 2,016 blocks, it adjusts every block and targets about 10 minutes per block, so long gaps between blocks are much less likely when hashrate arrives or leaves suddenly. Its source is published on GitHub for review. More in What is BitcoinII?

Releases before ShockWave (v29.1.0 and earlier) can’t follow the current chain. Back up your wallet, then upgrade to v31.1.0.

There is no central company, issuer or foundation, and this website is built by volunteers. Direction comes from community proposals and input from miners. When a vote is held, it is cast on-chain: each voter broadcasts a transaction carrying their vote and posts the transaction ID for tallying, so anyone can check every vote. TODO(verify): governance process details, to be confirmed with the lead developer TODO(verify): current roadmap, to be supplied by maintainers See Vision and roadmap.

At block 210,000. The reward then drops from 50 to 25 BC2 per block. The date depends on how fast blocks are found, so it moves with hashrate. The network page shows the live countdown and an estimated date.

From the public block explorer at explorer.bitcoin-ii.org, read directly by your browser. If it doesn’t answer, the site tries bc2mempool.com. Nothing is stored and nothing is tracked. You can always check any number on the explorer yourself.

It gives a long-run average from your hashrate and the current difficulty. Real results vary: finding blocks is a matter of luck, ShockWave changes the difficulty every block, and transaction fees aren’t included. Any value in money depends on a price you type in yourself. Treat it as a rough guide, not a promise. Open the calculator.

Releases and milestones are posted on the news page. For day-to-day discussion, join Discord or the other community channels. Download software only from the official GitHub release, whatever a message says.

• Help and questions: Discord or Telegram.
• Software bugs: BitcoinII Core issues on GitHub.
• Problems with this website: see the website security policy.

Nobody legitimate will ask for your seed phrase or private keys to “fix” a problem.