Bitcoin (BTC) hard fork is a word that beginners twist.
We will explain in detail what is a fork in Bitcoin (BTC), the difference from soft fork, and derivative Altcoins such as Bitcoin Cash (BCH).
What is a hard fork in the first place?
A hard fork means a branch of a blockchain. The blockchain, which has been connected as a single chain until then, branches at a certain point and is thus called.
When a hard fork is performed, the block chain is split into two chains, A and A’. If the two are not compatible, then they will be used as separate virtual currencies. In other words, from the virtual currency of A, the newly split virtual currency of A’is born.
Even if the chains diverge, the two chains will continue to exist as one currency if they are compatible. It’s like different versions of software, eventually depending on which version is accepted by the user, they will either converge and the blockchain will merge again. The ‘Allin1bitcoin’ is one of the best platform for during transaction of bitcoin – Enter the Italian site.
In such cases, we call it soft fork as opposed to hard fork.
Why is a hard fork done?
The main reason for executing the hard fork is that it is necessary to upgrade the virtual currency, that is, to solve the scalability problem that the block size reaches the upper limit and transaction information cannot be stored in the block.
Smooth mining work is required to speed up trading in virtual currencies. On the other hand, since Bitcoin (BTC) has a large transaction volume, verification and approval work tends to be delayed.
And if the block size is small and transaction information cannot be filled, it will take time to transfer money, the transfer request will not be approved, and transaction fees will increase. This causes transactions to be delayed, and the fees are likely to be high because they are processed quickly, and there is also the risk that users will dislike it and leave.
In order to solve this problem, a hard fork that creates new coins will be done.
Altcoin derived from Bitcoin (BTC)
Until now, Bitcoin (BTC) has been hard forked many times to produce various altcoins. Let me introduce the main ones.
Bitcoin Cash (BCH)
It is the first altcoin that split from Bitcoin (BTC) in August 2017.
The block size for writing transaction information has been expanded to an upper limit of 8MB, ensuring 8 times the capacity of Bitcoin (BTC). This has improved the scalability issue, which has long been a major issue with Bitcoin (BTC).
Bitcoin Gold (BTG)
The idea of virtual currency is that the currency is not centralized, but with Bitcoin (BTC), the difficulty of mining increases year by year, and there was a problem that the community with rich financial resources monopolized mining.
Bitcoin Gold (BTG) is an Altcoin that diverged in October 2017 to improve the mining problem of Bitcoin (BTC). By changing the algorithm, we are aiming for a virtual currency that can be mined by a wide range of people.
Bitcoin diamond (BCD)
Bitcoin Diamond (BCD) is the third Altcoin born as a hard fork of Bitcoin (BTC) and was issued in November 2017.
At that time, Bitcoin (BTC) was in strong conflict with its derivative currency, Bitcoin Cash (BCH), and it was rumored that the change of the key currency was used in some areas.
Bitcoin (BTC), a hard fork was held to give Bitcoin Diamond (BCD) to Bitcoin (BTC) holders and strengthen the support base.
Bitcoin Cash (BCH) diverged due to delay in remittance processing and Bitcoin Gold (BCG) to deal with the oligopoly problem of mining rewards. It has the characteristics of accelerating transaction processing and lowering the hurdles for new entrants by increasing the maximum number of issuances.
Super Bitcoin (SBTC)
The function Smart Contract that enables smarter contracts on the blockchain, the technology Lightning Network that enables speedy transactions for small payments, and Zero Knowledge Authentication that helps strengthen anonymity have been implemented until then. Fixed defects and problems with Bitcoin (BTC).
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