Bitcoin pioneers Jeff Garzik and Matthew Roszak just announced UnitedBitcoin, an ambitious Bitcoin fork launched globally on December 12, 2017. The purpose of UnitedBitcoin (UB) is to establish a credit currency system pegged against fiat currencies and supporting smart contracts that can serve society. UB’s network is 100 percent inherited from Bitcoin.  Following the fork, active addresses will receive UBTC at a rate of 1:1, the UBTC balances of inactive wallets will go to the UnitedBitcoin Foundation, which will use these UBTC to support high-quality blockchain projects. UnitedBitcoin will use the pressure-tested mechanics of Bitcoin, while making improvements such as on-chain scalability (increasing the block size to 8mb), adding smart contract support based on UVM, adding Lightning Network support for faster payments, and implementing SegWit. The UB team will further detail the fork at an event in Silicon Valley today.

The UB team consists of some of the most well-recognized leaders in the industry, including Chief Scientist Jeff Garzik, one of the original Bitcoin developers and the CEO of Bloq. UB’s Chief Strategy Officer Matthew Roszak is the co-founder and chairman of Bloq, and a founding partner of Tally Capital. The full UB team can be found here.

“UB is not looking to replace Bitcoin, but rather is looking to support the progression of the ecosystem by introducing new technologies faster,” said Jeff Garzik. “We look forward to this exciting next phase in Bitcoin’s evolution.”

UB will retrain many of the mechanics of Bitcoin, such as the total volume, block-speed, halving time, SegWit integration and PoW algorithm, with initial lowered difficulty. Where UB differs is the 8mb block size to improve on-chain scalability, the addition of new smart contract features, and plans to support the Lightning Network in 2018. UB’s smart contract system uses the UTXO model, a newly developed technology adding massive potential to its utility. Replay protection will also be native.

Part of the UBTC managed by the UnitedBitcoin Foundation will be allocated towards distributing rewards to other innovative chains in the ecosystem, such as Ethereum (the first smart contract), Qtum (the first smart contract on top of Bitcoin), Litecoin (the first major altcoin), Hshare (an algorithm with anti-quantum attack properties) and more. UB is the first fork that rewards multiple blockchains. All remaining UB will be used as collateral pegged to fiat currencies similar to USDT. In other words, there is no pre-mine.

“This ecosystem is a movie, not a static picture – the pace of innovations being developed in this industry is incredible. UB has created a platform and philosophy of adopting new features and functions for a broad community of market participants,” said Matthew Roszak.