Crypto Academy / season 3 / week 4 / Homework post blockchain forks for @awesononso

Hello my steemians fellows i hope your happy and Good.I feel refresh any time I attend lecture held here in the steemit crypto academy because I learn new things on daily basis.week 4 of the season 3 in the crypto academy. i attendeding the lecture delivered by professor @awesononso on the topic BLOCKCHAIN FORKS.
The cryptocurrency blockchains are decentralized system which means that every user or shareholder in a cryptocurrency community has a vote in whatever change that needs to be madr. we all have different mindsets and way of thinking.just as our faces are different its not unexpected that some members of the community may not be comfortable with changes.

QUESTION NO.1

WHAT IS A FORK?

No system built by man can ever be completely perfect not even the highly secured blockchain technology. when a technology is newly introduced it might seem so perfect with time. it flaws becomes so visible. Since man can not ever achieve perfection in his creation the good man can do is to keep improving on the technology.they have already introduced.But not everyone like change. In centralized systems changes can be easily as the whole decision making process is done by a person or a group of person. In decentralized systems like the blockchain where every cryptocurrency holder in the blockchain has a say in what happens in the system is very hard these changes as there must be certain persons who may not agree with these change.

Blockchain Fork

.2 types of blockchain fork.
.Hardfork
.Soft fork

QUESTION NO.2

WHAT A HARD FORK IS WITH EXAMPLES (CAN BE OF ANY BLOCKCHAIN).

Hard fork is a type of fork which occurs when a change in the blockchain protocol so radical to the extend the new created blockchain protocol is incompatible with the old blockchain protocol.This splitting of a blockchain leads to the creation of two new blockchains.This change in the blockchain protocol can be an intentional one but regardless of what caused the change if some miners in the blockchain who do not approve the changes made in the blockchain continue mining with the old blockchain protocol. the other miners who approve of the newly found blockchain continue with the new blockchain protocol. it will lead to the creation of two new blockchains.new version and the old version from that old one.Its worth noting that those who decides to continue the new blockchain will have the same number of coins they had in the original blockchain. This is because although they are different blockchains.they still share a common origin from the point of splitting. the old blockchain version will continue running with the old protocol.the new blockchain will run with modified protocol.

https://wiki.trezor.io/Welcome

EXAMPLE OF HARD FORK.

ETHEREUM AND ETHEREUM CLASSIC.

We all know about that happened in 2016. On that date a hacker was able to steal Round about $3.6 million worth of ether from the Ethereum platform. When this happened a meeting was held in Ethereum community to device a means of replace the $3.6 million that was stolen.Majority of the community approved of the idea of forking the block chain.while ignoring the old one. But there were some set of users disagreed and wanted to continue operate with the old version.In a bid to resolve the situation consensus was reached and those who wanted to continue with the new blockchain continued. its calling its cryptocurrency Ethereum while those who wanted to continue with the original version calling its cryptocurrency Ethereum Classic.

0xd4e56740f876aef8c010b86a40d5f56745a118d0906a34e69aec8c0db1cb8fa3

https://etcblockexplorer.com/block0

https://etherscan.io/block/0

Ethereum Classic Block 100,000

https://etcblockexplorer.com/block/

0x91c90676cab257a59cd956d7cb0bceb9b1a71d79755c23c7277a0697ccfaf8c4

https://etherscan.io/block/100000

After the split their records changes. Every consequent transactions records are not longer shared. the hash for Block 10,000,000 is for Ethereum Classic is 0x83bd7d679c4045bc71cba8ed60d2c9263a5e2ef101b1f3b36dd77c5007b53088

https://etcblockexplorer.com/block

https://etherscan.io/block/10000000

QUESTION NO.3

WHAT A SOFT FORK IS WITH EXAMPLES?

A soft fork is the type of fork in which is used to make small modifications in the blockchain. there is a change in the blockchain. it nodes are still compatible with the original version.For soft fork to actually works of the miners in the blockchain must agree to upgrade to the new protocol. Those users who did not upgrade to the new software can still be able to verify transactions in the blockchain. The reason for this is because soft fork is backwards compatible unlike hard fork.It is important to note that after soft fork have taken place. the miners must update their systems so that their can be able to validate new transactions. This is because, although the nodes from the new version can recognise the previous blocks.the nodes of the older version can not be able to validate new transactions on the new blockchain protocol. Updating of nodes is similar to what we do whenever we want to update any of our softwares.the old version is still compatible with the new network.it has some little limitation. One of the them is that the functionality of the user who have not upgraded is affected.

https://wiki.trezor.io/Soft_fork

EXAMPLE OF SOFT FORK.

SEGWIT
Segwit is basically a change in Bitcoin blockchain protocol.The most popular soft fork in the world of blockchains is segwit which is a soft fork in Bitcoin blockchain. Those who proposed segwit suggested that there was no wisdom in constantly increasing the size of a Bitcoin blockchains as each increase will result to the need for more hardwares to run node. They suggest that it was best the size of Bitcoin blockchains pegged at one megabyte just as Satoshi Nakamoto suggest in 2010.In a bid to modify the blockchain so that its maximum block size 1MB while still keeping to the goals of Satoshi Nakamoto they group created SegWit. Segwit is basically a change in Bitcoin blockchain protocol which involved reving witness data from the input list.This just as its name implies is only needed to verify the validity of a transaction. when it comes to determining transaction effect its not needed. Thus the removal does not necessarily affect the status of transaction. The removal of this data considerably reduced size of bitcoin block.

https://medium.com/coinmonks/segregated-witness-simplified-b0e56103750f

QUESTION NO.4

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HARD FORK AND SOFT FORK?

HARD FORK.

Leads to the creation of a new blockchain

Backwards incompatible

Requires the approval of all

There is repetition of blocks in both the new and the old version.

Must upgrade software immediately after fork before you can verify transaction.

Result to the creation of a new cryptocurrency

SOFT FORK.

Modifies an already existing blockchains

Backward Compatible

Requires the approval of majority.

There is no repetition of blocks, as no new block chain is created.

Do not need to upgrade immediately after fork in other to verify transaction in the blockchain.

Does not result to the Creation of a new cryptocurrency.

QUESTION NO.5

EXPLAIN THE FOLLOWING BITCOIN FORKS AND EXPLORE THE BLOCKCHAIN WHERE NECESSARY. INDICATE IF THEY ARE HARD FORKS OR SOFT FORKS, BITCOIN CASH AND SEGREGATED WITNESSES.

SEGREGATED WITNESSES.

The proposal of Segregated Witness SegWit lead to the forking of the Bitcoin blockchain. Those who proposed segwit suggested that there was no wisdom in constantly increase the size of a Bitcoin blockchains each increase will result to the need for more hardwares to run a node.They believed that it has best that the block size be pegged 1MB per block.

https://academy.ivanontech.com

BITCOIN CASH

The cryptocurrency Bitcoin Cash was created when Bitcoin was hard forked in 2017.the explaining soft fork using Bitcoin I mentioned that some Bitcoin users did not agree to SegWit idea. They were of the opinion that reducing the block size will considerable reduce the number of transactions that are carried out in the blockchain per second and for a cryptocurrency intending to be remain the dominating cryptocurrencies in the world.this is a good idea.while a majority of the developers went ahead to modified the blockchain.those who opposed the SegWit idea hard forked Bitcoin and created new version of Bitcoin by makin modifications to the Bitcoin source code. This hard fork resulted to the Bitcoin blockchain splitting into two.

.Bitcoin
.Bitcoin Cash.

Transfer speed of Bitcoin Cash is faster than that of Bitcoin transaction. You do not need to wait for up to 10 minutes for your transaction to be verified as is the case in Bitcoin Transaction.

Below screen shots showing the hash of bitcoin block.

Hash
000000000019d6689c085ae165831e934ff763ae46a2a6c172b3f1b60a8ce26f

https://www.blockchain.com/btc/block/0

HASH BTC CASH
000000000019d6689c085ae165831e934ff763ae46a2a6c172b3f1b60a8ce26f

https://www.blockchain.com/bch/block/0

For bitcoin block HASH
0000000000000000000c315d1b6143b982d26c5007d190437f54fc77b72c9f91

https://www.blockchain.com/btc/block/691867

BITCOIN CASH HASH
00000000000000000203fa15f9049b198c205a236f1927f57d879b661ddfc623

https://www.blockchain.com/bch/block/691867

QUESTION NO.6

THE STEEM AND HIVE HARD FORK AND SHOW SIMILARITIES IN THEIR GENESIS BLOCKS?

Steem hard fork ust like most blockchain hard fork happened as a result of a disagreement between the participants of the platform. the Justin Sunthe founder of TRON came into Steemit team he suggested the integration of TRX into the Steem blockchain.some participants many of them whales were not pleased with the idea suggested by the new steemit. The declared their independent from steemit and performed a hard fork on the steem blockchain.The steem witnesses copied the open source software of the Steemand then created This lead to the creation of new cryptocurrency Hive.You will notice that the two platforms. This is because they only made slight modifications to the software changing SBD to HBD and Steem to Hive Steem Power to Hive Power.They also change the platforms color.

The block ID of the Steem Genesis block is 0000000109833ce528d5bbfb3f6225b39ee10086, and the name of it's witness is @initminer as shown in the screenshot below

https://steemworld.org/block/1#

CONCLUSION

Blockchains are decentralized systems. This implies that no single person has total control it.what happens in the platform. it is understandable why disputes that can lead to the splitting of the blockchain keep arising in several blockchains. we all do not think in the same way. the need for change result to just modification of the blockchain protocol without introducing a new blockchain to a creation of a new blockchain as well as cryptocurrency.it is still for the best for both forks leads to the general advancement of blockchain technology.

Special thanks to professor @awesononso for this wonderful lecture.