Steemit Crypto Academy [Beginners’ Level] | Season 3 Week 4 | Blockchain Forks

Good day steemians, I will be writing an assignment on blockchain forks having gone through the impactful lecture of professor
@awesononso

1.What is a Fork? (In your own Words)

Forks can occur on a blockchain anywhere and at anytime because it contain code with open source,it can be easily modified since its easily accessible. Forks is done by developer or members of crypto community to add changes or correction on a blockchain protocol.

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When a blockchain protocol is undergoing a fork,what's agreed by miners might have been changed or disrupted. Due to changes in the blockchain the volatility of the chain is high due to uncertainty among investors. However, when fork is achieved it will be of benefit to the whole community.
Forks can be in two forms, which are hard fork and soft fork

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

hard fork refers to a strong,strict or radical change of a blockchain network protocol that is divided into two branches, when hard fork is been done on a blockchain it original protocol is been splited into two, which bring about the new rules and the old rules.

In hard fork, holders of tokens or coins in the original blockchain before its been splited will be granted tokens or coins in the new fork as well.
Hard forks also result in the creation of a new crypto token on the new blockchain. Since the new blockchain has a common history with the old block chain, holders of token on the old blockchain would likely have token or coins on the new blockchain also.

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hard forks come as a result of update or upgrade of software of a blockchain for the purpose of giving it a more rigid security. new functions and feature are been added to the blockchain to make it more compatible.

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

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soft fork is a type of fork that very little similarity with hard fork, soft fork improves the original blockchain without been splitted or divide in the direction of the original blockchain.
A Soft Fork is usually done when all the miners are in agreement to the intended software upgrade, the upgrade in this type of fork is known as minor upgrades.
Also, new node and old node is compatible with the blockchain,it doesn't bring about new currency.

We have different type of soft fork for different cryptocurrency and I will be taking bitcoin soft fork as case study

bitcoin soft fork also known as Segregated Witness (SegWit), this a type of soft fork that was implemented to bring about reduction in bitcoin transaction.
In 2017,bitcoin soft work was announced and implemented, the new upgrade announcement led to the Bitcoin Cash Hard, because not every one in the community supported the ideal.
The (segWit) was officially activated in block 481822 with a network acceptance fee of 99.95%. It is was recorded that in February 2018 over 30% of transactions was based on (SegWit).

4.What are the differences between Hard Forks and Soft Forks?

In the table below we have some some difference between hard fork and soft fork.

HARD FORK	SOFT FORK
In hard fork old nodes will consider new blocks as invalid	The blocks from the soft fork upgrade are seen as valid by old nodes.
New currency are formed	New currency are not formed
They are backward incompatible	They are backward compatible
They are splitted when upgraded	They are not splitted when upgraded

5.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 : A hard fork

Bitcoin Cash is cryptocurrency that came as a result of hard fork on the bitcoin blockchain in
21 July 2017, bitcoin cash(BCH) is a proof of work on bitcoin blockchain network,this cryptocurrency is very fast and very cheap to use compared to bitcoin.
Bitcoin cash was created through the spitted hard fork of bitcoin blockchain solve some problem of bitcoin.
It is accepted in some marchant for payment e.g PayPal, some who held bitcoin had the opportunit to get bitcoin cash,bitcoin cashlater had it own forks, the likes of bitcoin SV (BSV) etc .
The reason behind the creation of Bitcoin cash was to increase or expand the Block size to allow more transactions.

Bitcoin cash are used for some transaction purposes some merchant accept bitcoin cash as payment for goods and services, ecommerce and many more companies accept this asset.
The good thing about bitcoin cash is that the future of crypto has more goodies in store for BCH holders.

Bitcoin cash is ranked number 12th on the coinmarketcap and its current price is $459.11 as of today.

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Bitcoin Cash Segregated Witnesses (soft fork)

Segregated witness also known as (segwit) is the combination of two words, Segregate and Witness.
The word Segregate in one word means to set aside or to single out, while witnesses are attestant or testifier to a transaction.

Segregated witness (segwit) increase the size of transaction that could be done on bitcoin blockchain it doubled the capacity of the network and fit some bugs in the system.

Segregated witness is a fork that change the way data are been stored, and help Bitcoin network to run very smoothly and more faster.
Also, Segregated witnesses was initiated due the fact that the network was already frustrating members of the crypto community due to slowness of transaction and high rate of transaction fee.

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

After the short,disagreement that came up in the STEEM block chain in march 2020, this led to the hard fork done on Steem blockchain which brought about HIVE.
What Is Hive?
Hive is also an open-source blockchain created by the implementation of a hard fork on the Steem network.
It is a fork formed from the Steem blockchain and it doesn't depend on the existing chain. Steem users can also access their Hive accounts provided that their steem account keys are still available, with this they can have easy access on both accounts.

what is Steem?Steem is a cryptocurrency that is built on a decentralized application network on July 4, 2016.
steem is a blockchain that powers the the steem Blog. Steemit Blog is a decentralized social media blog.The currencies on steen Blog is STEEM .

SIMILARITIES BETWEEN STEEM AND HIVE

Steemit and Hive are both decentralized social media blogging platform,users of of hive and steemit are been curated when authors write quality post.
Both rely on the delegated proof-of-stake consensus also known as (DPOS), and allows coin or token holders to vote block witnesses. The witnesses make decisions and govern the blockchain.

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hive homepage

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steemit homepage

Comparing both steemit and hive homepage we can see that both have similarities in their homepage

Now to check the similarities in both steemit and hive Genesis block

STEEMIT GENESIS BLOCK

Firstly,visit steemworld.org

Click on Explore.

Inputting one in the given box which indicate steemit genesis block, then press OK

Here are the properties of steemit genesis block in the above screenshot.

Timestamp : 2016-03-24, 17:05:00(UTC+1)
Block Id : 0000000109833ce528d5bbfb3f6225b39ee10086
Previous key:0000000000000000000000000000000000000000
Signing key : STM8GC13uCZbP44HzMLV6zPZGwVQ8Nt4Kji8PapsPiNq1BK153XTX
Witness : initminer
Witness Signature: 204f8ad56a8f5cf722a02b035a61b500aa59b9519b2c33c77a80c0a714680a5a5a7a340d909d19996613c5e4ae92146b9add8a7a663eef37d837ef881477313043

HIVE GENESIS BLOCK

To explore the hive genesis block
Firstly, go to https://hiveblocks.com/

Input one into the search box then press search

click on get raw data

Here are some information needed below👇 for hive Genesis block

CONCLUSION

Thank to professor @awesononso for taking his time to put this lecture today and I am happy for been part of this class, if not for this lecture I wouldn't have known that hive came out for Steem blockchain. And I as a student have put all my best in this assignment.
THANKS