In the wake of Bitcoin XT’s failure, another proposal was made to increase Bitcoin’s block size. In 2017, another hard fork was created, and a new cryptocurrency called Bitcoin Cash (BCH -0.87%) was born. In 2018, Bitcoin Cash also had a hard fork, creating Bitcoin Cash ABC (the original version) and a new parallel network called Bitcoin Cash SV (BSV +2.13%).
Ethereum also underwent a hard fork a couple of years after its launch. In response to hackers draining Ethereum from the account of crypto investment start-up The DAO (“DAO” is an abbreviation for “decentralized autonomous organization”), a fork was implemented to allow victims of the attack to redeem some funds from the faulty DAO. Some miners didn’t opt in since the flaw wasn’t with Ethereum itself. The original blockchain lives on as Ethereum Classic (ETC -5.02%).
Pros and cons of hard forks
There are a lot of benefits to a hard fork. It may satisfy security issues or provide upgrades to the performance of a blockchain network. A hard fork might alter the rewards for mining a cryptocurrency and how miners function. Hard forks might also give some participants in a blockchain community the opportunity to part ways if they have a different vision for their blockchain project.
However, there are disadvantages to hard forks, including:
- Confusion among investors as a new but similar cryptocurrency spins off from the original.
- Hackers may be able to take advantage of weaknesses in the blockchain network after a hard fork, such as a 51% attack or a replay attack.
- The old version of a blockchain may continue to exist after a fork even though it may contain security or performance flaws the hard fork was designed to fix.
Soft fork vs. hard fork
A soft fork can be thought of as a minor upgrade to software, similar to updates that frequently occur on a smartphone. If updates aren’t downloaded right away, functionality on devices is usually still valid. Soft forks in blockchain operate in a similar fashion. The update is backward-compatible with older versions of the blockchain software.
This contrasts with a hard fork, in which the upgrade is no longer compatible with older versions of the blockchain. Something similar occurs when a new operating system software upgrade is pushed to a computer, rendering older versions obsolete.
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