Explain bitcoin and blockchain splits like I'm five

nelruk

member

Activity: 115

Merit: 11

Bitcoin is revolution

Quote from: verifyas on October 29, 2017, 03:17:00 PM

Here is a write up we did that explains the concepts of forks and what are soft and hard forks. Hope it helps:
https://medium.com/@verify.as/explain-forks-hard-and-soft-forks-to-me-fda79644aa97

Quote from: jseverson on October 23, 2017, 10:33:22 PM

I like to think of it as making multiple copies of an image and applying various filters to them. You basically get a complete copy of the original because it's too much of a hassle to create another image from scratch, and you edit it as you desire, all the while keeping the old one. You then go around telling everyone the new image is better because you increased its brightness, resolution, etc., and that everyone who still uses the old one as their wallpaper or something should switch to your new and improved one instead. All the pictures are open to everyone though, so while everyone has a copy of your new one, they have the option of not using it, or completely abandoning the old one for it. Now, instead of everyone in the group having the same wallpaper, the group gets rather fragmented.

That's about as simple as I can explain it. Sorry if my analogy is bad lol.

The link is very useful and also the analogy. Thank you, both.

bitcoinmaniac52

sr. member

Activity: 532

Merit: 250

Presale is live!

Picture walking down a sidewalk. That is the blockchain. A fork is when someone splits the sidewalk in 2 directions. There is one final block, and then the sidewalk is forever "forked" into two paths.

verifyas

member

Activity: 112

Merit: 10

Verify is an Ethereum-powered Reputation protocol

Here is a write up we did that explains the concepts of forks and what are soft and hard forks. Hope it helps:
https://medium.com/@verify.as/explain-forks-hard-and-soft-forks-to-me-fda79644aa97

Bitcoinpro

legendary

Activity: 1344

Merit: 1000

instead of the blocks going up in a straight line they go onto a different path, only an off chain run split would ever go back to the main chain (technically not a split) and it would not be protected by the same hashing power unless it was a co-mined electrotype that was programmed to interact with the main chain,

frankbitcoin

sr. member

Activity: 1288

Merit: 295

Quote from: jseverson on October 23, 2017, 10:33:22 PM

I like to think of it as making multiple copies of an image and applying various filters to them. You basically get a complete copy of the original because it's too much of a hassle to create another image from scratch, and you edit it as you desire, all the while keeping the old one. You then go around telling everyone the new image is better because you increased its brightness, resolution, etc., and that everyone who still uses the old one as their wallpaper or something should switch to your new and improved one instead. All the pictures are open to everyone though, so while everyone has a copy of your new one, they have the option of not using it, or completely abandoning the old one for it. Now, instead of everyone in the group having the same wallpaper, the group gets rather fragmented.

That's about as simple as I can explain it. Sorry if my analogy is bad lol.

I think that's a really fun analogy and an easy way to understand it.

jseverson

hero member

Activity: 1834

Merit: 759

I like to think of it as making multiple copies of an image and applying various filters to them. You basically get a complete copy of the original because it's too much of a hassle to create another image from scratch, and you edit it as you desire, all the while keeping the old one. You then go around telling everyone the new image is better because you increased its brightness, resolution, etc., and that everyone who still uses the old one as their wallpaper or something should switch to your new and improved one instead. All the pictures are open to everyone though, so while everyone has a copy of your new one, they have the option of not using it, or completely abandoning the old one for it. Now, instead of everyone in the group having the same wallpaper, the group gets rather fragmented.

That's about as simple as I can explain it. Sorry if my analogy is bad lol.

danilocarneiro

newbie

Activity: 1

Merit: 0

In the case of Bitcoin Gold we should consider after fork core developers will exclusively mine the next 8000 blocks until mining is open to the public. I'm kinda skeptical about BTG open governance but anyway it will be interesting to see how it will do.

Crypington

full member

Activity: 210

Merit: 103

If you wanted to get a little technically, you could just point out that Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, and BitCoin Gold share a common BlockChain up to the point of the fork... Therefore, everyone who held Bitcoin before the Fork gets the same amount of the new coin.

It is a weird concept to explain it appears that money is being created out of thin air, a concept people can't relate to.

nelruk

member

Activity: 115

Merit: 11

Bitcoin is revolution

Recently, I was talking with some friends and they were talking about bitcoin and shitcoins. So, in the middle of the conversation I realized that was very difficult to explain the recent events about the splits.

For instance, I know there are three models of bitcoin right now: Bitcoin (original project), Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin Gold (coming soon). My real problem is that I don't know how to explain these divisions with clarity.

How can I explain the bitcoin current status to people in order to understand how these divisions work? Huh

Topic: Explain bitcoin and blockchain splits like I'm five (Read 347 times)