Crypto Academy || Season 3 || Week 4 - Homework Post for professor [@awesononso] Blockchain Forks by @olachi
Blockchain Forking, in a simple term means separation. The separation can be permanent or temporary.
It occurs when a blockchain separates from each other or divides into a new split which might be as a result of a change in consensus or the change in the software protocols, for instance if a set of the miners think they can improve the efficiency of the present blockchain. Forks occur on a particular block and other block following the block accepts that new rules executed by the nodes. Blockchain forking can also occur in some situations like when two miners mine blocks been the same height at almost the same time.
The Developers tend to change the software rules in use to determine if a transaction is valid or not valid
Based on the identity and the permanence of change, the fork can be said to be a as soft fork or a hard fork.
Hard Forks are forks that are totally incompatible with the older version of the software. This incompatibility surface due to the change in consensus measures like the block time, block size or look alike related attributes been implemented by the miners. Hard fork turns the formerly valid blocks and transactions to invalid. Transactions on the newer forked chain not been valid on the older one. Also all nodes and miners will also upgrade to the newest version of the protocol software if they also want to keep working on the new chain that is forked.
Bitcoin XT
The Bitcoin XT which was initiated by Mike Hearn in 2014 with aim of an increase in its network transaction speed. And also making Bitcoin more scalable. The original blockchain can execute 7 transactions per second, the Bitcoin XT offers to carry out about 24 transactions per second. With an increase in its block size of 8MB.Bitcoin Classic
After the era of the Bitcoin XT. There was another fork by some part of the Bitcoin community with a look alike aim, which lead to the creation of the Bitcoin Classic which was forked out of Bitcoin Core.
The difference between Bitcoin XT and the Bitcoin classic fork was the block size. Bitcoin Classic offers a smaller block size of 2MB.
Soft ware forks are forks that are compatible with the older version of the software. These updates can still work with the first blockchain. This simply means that the new forked chain taking new rules, but also honors the old rules, the original chain will still be working with the old rules. This fork needs marjorly the miners upgrading to apply new rules.
Example is the Bitcoin segwit update with new addresses Bech32 that was developed, but the users that were still using older P2SH addresses still used it, with the current forked chain possessing over 51% harshing power, it is usable. The older versions will still function.
| HARD FORK | SOFT FORK |
|---|---|
| hard fork brings about creating a new currency | soft fork no creation of new currency |
| In terms of DOA attack hard fork can reverse the funds to the real owners | meanwhile soft fork can not do funds reversal |
| It needs nodes upgrade | the old version is in use but new features of the new version is unaccessable |
| Hard forks makes changes in the software | software makes changes on how transactions are done. |
Bitcoin Cash
Bitcoin cash created in 2017, which is a fork of bitcoin to resolve some of bitcoin's problems. With Bitcoin, which can process only a maximum of seven transactions per second. The aim for bitcoin cash was to raise bitcoin's block size limit of 1MB every 10 minutes, this translates to a maximum of 7 transactions per second, to 8MB every 10 minutes. Bitcoin cash can also go up to 32MB.
To show that bitcoin cash is a hard fork of bitcoin..let's take a look at their Hash blocks
BTC
000000000019d6689c085ae165831e934ff763ae46a2a6c172b3f1b60a8ce26f
Segregated Witnesses
Segregated Witness also known as the SegWit which is a Bitcoin protocol update aim at fixing the issues of transaction malleability and also helped to scale the Bitcoin network without the presence of a hard fork.
The SegWit which was implemented has increased the maximum block size and also doubled the transactions speed on the Bitcoin blockchain.
Moreover, SegWit brings about innovative layer two scaling solutions to Bitcoin, which also creates the base of the Lightning Network. The segwit is a soft fork.
Steemit interface
Hive interface
Steem Hardfork
The steem community made up their mind to hard fork because their was an argument in the community then which was the Tron integration. Some group of persons were not in support of it which lead to the separation of the platform and crypto currency was created named hive. The hive Blockchain looks similar to that of steem the difference there is the little changes that was made on the hive platform..below we can relate with their similarities.
Visit the
https://steemworld.org/
Steem Genesis block ID
0000000109833ce528d5bbfb3f6225b39ee10086
Hive block chain we visit
https://hiveblocks.com
With the steem Genesis block was created on 24th March,2016 at 17:05 (UTC+1) and it's witness name is @initminer.
Hive Genesis block was created on 24th March,2016 at 16:05 (UTC) with the same Witness name as well.
Professor @awesononso