1.5.11 Hard Fork and Soft Fork

Public Blockchains often undergo forks. These forks are of two

types, i.e., hard fork and soft fork. Hark fork is a serious change in a

Blockchain ecosystem where the primary Blockchain splits into more

than one protocol with different cryptocurrencies.

As shown in Figure 1.5, a hard fork is an important concept in

Blockchain that can occur by accident or with careful planning. When

different parties in a Blockchain disagree on certain concepts of the

Blockchain, that leads to the emergence of different hard forks.

Bitcoin Classic, Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin Gold etc., are the different hard

forks of Bitcoin. Refer to Figure 1.5, as follows:

Figure 1.5: Hard Fork

As represented in Figure 1.6, Soft forks are backward-compatible

temporary divergences from the main chain, where some previously

valid transaction blocks are invalidated. It happens when the old

nodes do not agree to a rule followed by the newly upgraded nodes.

Refer to Figure 1.6, as follows:

Figure 1.6: Soft Fork