Steemit Crypto Academy Contest / S4W4 - Blockchain Forks

Hello 👋 great steemians,

How are you all doing? This contest is really awesome and interesting because talking about forks would help educate so maybe about so many crypto currencies and the history of the current steemit, this is because the platform steemit has previously experienced a forks after a big misunderstanding between some witness and steemit team.

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Using your own terms to define what is a fork in general

To be sincere with you the first time I heard the word fork, I thought they were referring to the kitchen utensil with four sharp mouth 🍴 😂😆. To be sincere I taught they were about to be share food and forks 😃😂, so I started to salivate. But after some awesome reading, research and discovery, I found out I was wrong and I just liked food to much 🤣.

Ok to be sincere after much knowledge gathering I found out the well-known Blockchain concept or technology is referred to as a "fork" when it significantly alters in response to any network protocol, invalidating earlier blocks and transactions or vice versa. Every time block production is negatively or positively interrupted, a rule or series of events known as a fork is thought to take place. Every time a rule in the blockchain is changed, forks help to sustain both the old and new copies of the Blockchain, keeping both of them in existence. Dissatisfied with the functionality offered by the present blockchain implementations, blockchain experts, developers, or members of the bitcoin community may initiate forks. They could evolve into a kind of crowdsourcing funding for innovative technical ventures or cryptocurrency offerings.

In simplest term I would define a fork as the process or act of upgrading the the Blockchain, with the aim to also keep the old version running alongside the new version of the Blockchain. In other words it's more like using an already created source code of a Blockchain to develop another different but similar Blockchain that runs totally independently with added features or fewer features such as protocols.

Fork on a general term has to do with spitting

You might be wondering what's the use of forking a Blockchain, here are so many reasons

why Blockchain are been forked

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° Forks help resolve, security failure issues

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When there was a hack on their (DAO) Decentralized Autonomous Organization, the team decided to use a fork to reverse the attack on their Decentralized Autonomous Organization. As a result, fork has been very helpful in the blockchain ecosystem because it has prevented many people from committing suicide due to losing their money. The team was able to recover millions of dollars' worth of stolen property thanks to the reversal, and the original owners were able to reclaim all of their property.

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° Upgrading of any Blockchain

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As I had highlighted yesterday, Blockchain has been helpful when it comes to Blockchain upgrading. Whenever most Blockchain team or most witness wants to upgrade a Blockchain, add new rule's or features or remove toxic rules or features on an existing Blockchain, the best alternative for the team is to fork the Blockchain.

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Using any blockchain example, explain what a Hard Fork is.

Hard forks are usually know as the the kinds of forks that emerge from a dispute between the blockchain network's creators and stakeholders. Furthermore, hard forks occur when the blockchain's witness, stakeholders or developers disagree with proposed changes or upgrades. This results in the formation of two distinct Blockchain, one of which is created because there isn't complete consensus on the network.

A blockchain is considered to have undergone a hardfork when two distinct blockchains are created as a result of planned protocol changes that one group of developers deems unacceptable. The changes made significantly alter how blockchains function and result in the formation of a new different blockchain. Therefore, a hardfork results in the creation of a new blockchain and coins while the existing blockchain continues to function. Developers who oppose the proposed change in code continue to work on the original blockchain, while those who are in favor of the change work on the newly established blockchain.

A free source

For easiest explaination, I would say hard fork is a type of forking that occurs after an aggressive or hard choice or decision between top administrators or withness of a Blockchain that cause the spitting of a blocking into a new independent Blockchain that has it own different asset.

For example

Some years ago there was a little misunderstanding between some arrogant and wicked withness and steem current boss Justin Sun, they quarrel started after some months after the former Steemit boss sold steemit to the great Tron Blockchain CEO. The bad witness was concerned of only their pockets, without considering the small authors on the platform.

Justin Sun in his wisdom and compassion was against it and because the had access to the original source code of the steemit Blockchain their hard forked the Steemit, these hard fork brought about the wired and awkward platform known as hive. Although the platform looks like steemit but much more disorganized, after the hard fork a new Cryptocurrencies known as Hive was emerged.

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Using any blockchain example, explain what a Soft Fork is.

Soft fork, in contrast to Hard fork, is more akin to an upgraded version since it updates Blockchain as soon as it is accepted by all required nodes. Soft forks, in contrast to Hard forks, provide for easy access to older versions because both the current and older versions are capable of being compacted backwards.
Soft fork is the opposite of hard fork because of it is a fork that occurs after a peaceful agreement with all exiting members, witness or developers on the Blockchain. On a soft fork the new Blockchain is still connected to old Blockchain because whenever the need to redirect to the old Blockchain, it can be done easily and faster.

Soft fork usually results to a better Blockchain because it is approved by all concerned party on the Blockchain, so therefore whenever the new blockchain is developed by all shareholders, and developer on the Blockchain. So therefore the won't be any conflict that might restrict the growth of the Blockchain. One of the biggest and most powerful soft work on the Blockchain technology,was that done on Bitcoin Blockchain due to the slow working capacity of the Blockchain, this soft fork was was aimed to fasten the rate of transaction and reduce the waiting time of transaction on the Bitcoin Blockchain. This initiative was first brought to live I the year 2015 by a co-founder of the Blockchain Known as Pieter Wiulle and the project was known as segregated witness (segwit)

The developer suggested a transaction block approach to address the issue by increasing the amount of transactions that may be loaded simultaneously in a block by leaving the witness signature blank. The typical Bitcoin block has a 1 MB storage space and could hold roughly 2700 transaction information. The block can now contain more transaction data, which helps to solve the Blockchain's queuing issue, by removing the witness signature from the transactions. In 2017, the Bitcoin Blockchain's segwit upgrade was introduced, which wasn't well received by all of its users. Although the innovative negatively affected some other users so the had to host a hard fork Blockchain to satisfy more people.

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What are the differences between Hard Forks and Soft Forks?

Hard fork	Soft fork
• Usually bring in the creation of a new Cryptocurrencies	• No new Cryptocurrency is been generated.
• New Blockchain can't be reversed or communicate with the old Blockchain	• Both the old and new blockchain can an easily communicate without stress
• A new and Independent Blockchain is created	• Although a new blockchain is developed it is not independence from the old Blockchain.
•Minority of the developers agrees	• More of developers or witness approves

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Explain the Steem and Hive Hard fork by showing the similarities/differences in their Genesis blocks.

Steemit an awesome social media platform known for rewarding quality content was brought to life in the year 2016 by two awesome minds know as Ned Scott and Dan Larimer, but in February 2020 Justin Sun bought steemit. After some months a Justin Sun wanted to add some features like the merging of steemit and the Tron Blockchain, but some selfish witness saw it from the wrong angle and the started accusing Justin of a hostile takeover of steem Blockchain. After so many meetings to settle the difference between the two parties, unfortunately the meetings ended up in deadlock.

So Justin Sun and some other supporters of good will, voted out top witness who caused problem on the Blockchain, after some time the angry witness who wanted to reduce steemit power down for their selfish reasons, Started a Blockchain fork that caused the creation and discovery of a new blockchain known Hive (some times I wonder if bees leave in the Blockchain 🤭😂😂) also a new native token named after the Blockchain hive was created to run transaction on their Blockchain.

Although the front end of hive is similar to steem in so many ways for example just as steemit is a social media platform, hive is also a social media platform that up votes and down votes authors when necessary and just

Analysing block 1 of each Blockchain

Source to steemit block

Source to hive block

I just marked most significant similarities with a green box, for example

• the timestamp of both Blockchain are similar

• The witness that approved the both Blockchain has same account name, which shows it might be the same person.

• The both blockchain has same transaction id

While the most notable difference is that

• The hive Blockchain don't have a witness signature a signing key, just as it's shown on Steem Blockchain..

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Conclusion

To my understanding I believe forks are really helpful when used and handled by right minded individuals but I turns into a bad project when handled by ungrateful individuals or witness like the hive witness.

Thank you very much for going through, wishing you success. @jueco, @pelon53 @preye2