Fork Definition | Decryptopedia™ by BabyPips.com

A fork, when discussing blockchain technology, is a change to a blockchain’s underlining protocol or software, introduced by a developer of that blockchain.

It’s a software upgrade!

From time to time, developers like to make changes to a blockchain, such as adding new blockchain functionality, correcting security issues, creating entirely new coins, or even changing the consensus protocol that governs how blocks are created and validated on a blockchain.

Forks introduce those changes to the blockchain, by creating a second blockchain (n the case of a hard fork), a copy of the original blockchain but with the changes added to the second blockchain.

With soft forks, the changes that take place are minor and don’t create a completely separate blockchain. Nodes that perform a soft fork are still compatible with nodes that don’t perform a soft fork.

On the other hand, after a hard fork, two separate blockchains exist in parallel to each other. The two chains share common data and transaction history up until the hard fork.

After the hard fork, newly mined blocks will only exist on the blockchain where they were validated and created.

With hard forks, any blocks created using the old protocol are incompatible with the newly upgraded blockchain.

Software changes can be minor in scope as in the case of soft forks.

The proposed upgrades can also dramatically alter the original ruleset that governs how a blockchain operates, in which case they’re referred to as a hard fork.

Forks are necessary in providing decentralized blockchains a way to make changes to the blockchain since there isn’t a central authority governing all aspects of blockchain development and evolution.

The blockchain community comprised of developers, node operators, and miners all

Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin Gold came into existence out of the original Bitcoin blockchain because of a hard fork.

Related Terms

Soft Fork

In relation to blockchain technology, a soft fork involves introducing changes to a blockchain’s underlining protocol or software that are minor in nature. These software updates can take the form of new blockchain functionality, upgrades to network performance, enhancements that correct security issues, or even changes to the consensus rules that govern how blocks are created and validated on a blockchain. Forks are necessary for providing decentralized blockchains a way to make changes to the blockchain since there isn’t a central authority governing all aspects of blockchain development and evolution.

Hard Fork

A Hard Fork is a permanent split of a blockchain into two separate networks that will coexist simultaneously, running in parallel, but not affecting one another.

Full Node

A type of node that participates in a blockchain network, performing some function for the network, like securing the network or validating transaction data. A full node stores a complete copy of the blockchain data. Information about every block and the recorded transactions within each block is available in the full copy of the blockchain.

Bitcoin (BTC)

Bitcoin (BTC) is most well known as a digital decentralized cryptocurrency, without a central bank or single administrator, that can be sent from user to user on the peer-to-peer Bitcoin network without the need for intermediaries, such as payment gateways or banks or routing services. Think of bitcoin as Internet money, that you can send and receive directly, to and from anyone, and you can use it to pay for stuff.

Blockchain

Blockchain networks are at the heart of cryptocurrencies. A blockchain is a database, or digital ledger, made up of a series of interconnected blocks containing transaction data created on the network over some period of time. Each block in a blockchain also contains a unique identifier unlike any other block in the chain called a hash. Think of the hash as a fingerprint identifying that block for all other blocks. Distributed ledger technology (DLT) is another name frequently used in relation to blockchains.