Topic: Guys, What is Fork/Hard Fork? (Read 113 times)

Like the other people answered already, forking is just an update to Bitcoin. Forks usually fix errors, bugs and new things get added into it.

Fork is the process through which new coins are being created , these coins are derived from coins that already existed ( for exemple : bitcoin cash that is derived from bitcoin )
it's that simple , I guess

Read these :
https://www.coindesk.com/short-guide-bitcoin-forks-explained/
https://news.bitcoin.com/a-guide-to-what-a-bitcoin-fork-is-and-why-they-happen/
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/h/hard-fork.asp

Of course you could have used google or the search forum........

From Investopedia:

"In terms of blockchain technology, a soft fork (or sometimes softfork) is a change to the software protocol where only previously valid blocks/transactions are made invalid. Since old nodes will recognize the new blocks as valid, a softfork is backward-compatible. This kind of fork requires only a majority of the miners upgrading to enforce the new rules, as opposed to a hard fork which requires all nodes to upgrade and agree on the new version."

Soft forks happen more often and it is also important to note that a soft fork can become a hard fork if less then 51% of mining power shifts to the new chain forcing the chain to split instead of self-correcting.

well you know what a blockchain is, right? It is a chain of blocks. Every new block is a cryptographically consistent continuation of the previous blocks. In that way, an attacker who would want to change a transaction say 3 blocks deep, would need to possess computational power to replace those 3 blocks with new (his own, fake) 3 blocks, but in a cryptographically consistent way. It is very hard and requires unbelievable computing power (all the computing power that is currently devoted in the whole world to finding new blocks can find ONE block in 10 minutes on average).

Hard fork is when the protocol is changed in such a way that new blocks don't follow the previous specification and would be normally rejected by the network. It requires that everybody changes their sofware (miners, wallets etc.) to follow the new protocol and be able to recognize new block format.

But sometimes some network participants say "hey, I don't want to follow new protocol". They don't upgrade their software and continue mining the previous format of blocks. In that way a hard fork is a reason for two separate blockchains to exist from that moment on. Usually one of the blockchains is discontinued because economically it doesn't make sense to mine it anymore.

But sometimes after a hard fork two coins coexist - an old coin on an old blockchain and a new coin on a new blockchain. It was the case with Ethereum Classic (old coin) and hard-forked Ethereum (new coin), with Bitcoin Cash (new coin) and Bitcoin (old coin) etc.

I don't know if it was clear. If not - ask. The topic is quite complex and there is nowhere to start explaining - it is either too in-depth or too shallow. I hope I was in the middle somewhere and that it was helpful.

A fork is when another one separates from one coin. As a rule, this happens with bitcoin, however, forks can also be with other coins. A plug is possible for any group of people to conduct without agreeing to this with anyone else because bitcoin has an open source code. That is, anyone can use the history of bitcoin transactions as the history of a new coin to be created and, based on this, create a new coin with any new improvements or new functionality.

Hey guys, I'm new to cryptocurrencies , I don't know much about Fork thing? What is Forking and how does it affect any crypto currency?