HOMEWORK TASK

• What is a Fork? (In your own Words)

• Explain in details what a Hard Fork is with examples (Can be of any blockchain).

• Explain in details what a Soft Fork is with examples (Can be of any blockchain).

• What are the differences between Hard Forks and Soft Forks?

• Explain the following Bitcoin Forks and explore the blockchain where necessary. Indicate if they are hard forks or soft forks;
  Bitcoin Cash
  Segregated Witnesses

• Write on the Steem and Hive Hard fork and show similarities in their Genesis Blocks(Provide screenshots).

What is a Fork? (In your own Words

Fork simply means upgrades,improvements,and change of protocols that occurs in blockchain.
There must be upgrades and updates to satisfy human curiosity.

More to that Forks occurs anywhere and anytime especially when there is an agreement between the miners and developer.

Explain in details what a Hard Fork is with examples (Can be of any blockchain).

Hard Fork.

This is a type of fork that result to splitting of blockchain into two different chains,which will be a continuation of the old protocols and a follow-up of the new rules.

source

Some developer implement Hard fork for security reasons,to correct some risk that has been noticed on the old rules or protocols

While in some cases Hard fork occurs as a result of creation of a new currency in blockchain.

An example is Bitcoin Hard Fork
Bitcoin Hard Fork is the change of protocols on Bitcoin Blockchain that lead to splitting in two branches,one with the old rules the other with the new rule.

This lead to the creation if Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin Gold and other digital currency.

Ethereum classic is another example of Hard Fork.

Explain in details what a Soft Fork is with examples (Can be of any blockchain).

Soft Fork is a system that brings growth to the Blockchain by upgrading the original rules,and it doesn't split into branches like Hard Fork.

The majority of the miners come into agreement before they update or create any rules,thats why is said that Soft Fork is a backward compatible.

Example of Soft Fork is segregated witness (segwit).
Before 2015 signature data was consuming about 65% of transactional blocks segwit increased the block size from 1mb to 4 mb thereby removing the signature from the transactional data of every Blockchain,creating space for more transactions.

In conclusion instead of creating new rules that might split the blockchain,Soft Fork comes out with solutions or ideas that will bring improvement to the blockchain.

What are the differences between Hard Forks and Soft

Soft Fork doesn't split blockchain. It doesn't create new currency. There is no repetition of block height. Its backward compatible.

Explain the following Bitcoin Forks and explore the blockchain where necessary. Indicate if they are hard forks or soft forks;Bitcoin Cash,Segregated Witnesses

Bitcoin cash is a hard Fork

Segregated witness is a Soft Fork.

Write on the Steem and Hive Hard fork and show similarities in their Genesis Blocks(Provide screenshots).

Steem Hard Fork.

This occurred when there was a little disagreement between between Justin Sun the founder of Tron and other steemians,this lead to spliting in to two, and Hive was created.

Hive is also a decentralized Network with social media like Steemit.

Similarities of Steemit and Hive

Both have strange similarities like

• Both have the same time stamp

steem block explorer

Hive block explorer

Both transaction was done by the same miner steemit63.
And the account worker was the same person steemit45.

steem block explorer.

Hive block explorer

My conclusion

Forking is good both in companies and decentralized community,because it gives the opportunity for any group of people that accepts on a particular format to continue working together or trading together in peace.

More to that in blockchain world hard fork is beneficial because it gives opportunity for the creation of new digital currency,and it creates opportunity for new investors.

Thank you,@awesononso