Grassroot Crypto Education | Series 2 Volume 11 - Forks in the Crypto Ecosystem||by @habdallah

Hey guys. This week is another wonderful week again for the crypto education season. This week's lecture which is about crypto ecosystem fork. The term fork in the crypto ecosystem is about changes in the ecosystem.

1. What's your understanding of Forks in the Crypto Ecosystem? List the types of forks in the crypto ecosystem?

FORKS

Fork can then be defined as an incident that could result to the change in the basic rules or protocol of a particular blockchain community or network which is caused as a disagreement between the individuals patronizing or using the network. These individuals could be the developers and the miners. Whenever a fork happens, the original blockchain network divides or splits resulting to the rise of a new blockchain. This new blockchain shares or derives all of it data from the parent or original blockchain but the new blockchain is actually heading into a different path or direction. The parent or original blockchain maintains it path.

Forks always as a result of a misunderstanding among the individuals patronizing a particular blockchain. It could be that one party wants to do some little changes on the blockchain or add some new features to the blockchain.
Also a fork could happen beacuse one particular party wants to create a new blockchain network that differs from the original blockchain.

TYPES OF FORKS
There are basically two types of forks that are known, and these are;

• SOFT FORK
• HARD FORK

1. Discuss the two types of Forks in the Crypto Ecosystem. What necessitates forks in cryptocurrency?

SOFT FORK

Soft fork can be explained as an upgrade or enhancement to a blockchain that doesn't result to any misunderstanding. Whenever a soft fork happens in a blockchain there is an agreement between the developers and the miners. Also, after a soft fork happens the updated blockchain and the parent or original blockchain still relates. But some features of the original blockchain are limited to the new blockchain. When updating a soft fork, the entire system isn't affected that is why there is always an understanding when it comes to that.

HARD FORK

Hard fork happens in a blockchain when there is a misunderstanding on a particular blockchain due to how the new changes or rules doesn't relates to the original rules.
The new set of rules or changes might be in the favour of the developers, whereby it is affecting the miners.
So there woud definitely be a disagreement or misunderstanding.
So incase of a situation like this the blockchain divides or splits into two. That is the parent blockchain and the new blockchain which is created as a result of the misunderstanding.

FACTORS THAT NECESSITATES FORKS IN THE CRYPTO ECOSYSTEM

There are a lot of known factors that causes forks to happen in the crypto ecosystem. Below are some few i will be talking of.

• Forks could happen when there is the need to resolve security matters. The developers of a blockchain might want to increase their security system because they feel like their system is weak. So by coming up with a particular type of security rules that the miners might see it to be difficult to operate with. So they wouldn't agree with it.

• A blockchain could be experiencing so much pressure on it. That is with the number of miners or operators on it. Therefore the authorities would want to minimize the number of operators or miners by requesting some irrelevant things, like more charges from them that could result to a fork happening.

• A fork could possibly happen there are new rules set or changes are made to the original rules set for a particular blockchain.

• Modification of a blockchain might also result to a fork happening. This modification could be the adoption of new things into the original blockchain system. Like a particular cryptocurrency wanting to partnership with a different cryptocurrency. This could result to a division of the system.

In conclusion, a fork happens as a result of changes in the basic rules or protocol of a particular blockchain network. Also you have to know that there are two types of this fork, that is the soft and hard fork. The hard happens as a result of complete disagreement. Whiles the soft fork happens after an agreement. Both has an impact on the blockchain.

Cc
@ngoenyi
@fredquantum