✅Lesson 7| What is fork?
By: Matteo Ek
Tags: Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, Ethereum, Cryptoprofessor

Fork is the creation of a new cryptocurrency based on the original program code of bitcoin. Usually fork is created to solve some of the bitcoin problems, such as low transaction speed, complexity of mining, scaling, or to add new functions to the blockchain, for example, smart contracts. More often forks differ from each other in the emission speed and encrypting algorithms.

Fork can also be understood as making changes to the existing blockchain with the original purpose to upgrade it, rather than create a new currency. In this context, there are the concepts of hardfork and softfork.

Hardfork is a software update that implants a new rule into the network and is incompatible with the old software. That is, hardfork is a change in the rules (for example, to increase the block size from 1 Mb to 2 Mb, you need a hardfork), which requires a software update. After the new version appears, the old version remains valid, therefore, in case of disagreement with the new rules, some users can continue using the old blockchain, which will entail a split of the cryptocommunity, as in the case of Ethereum and Ethereum Classic.

Softfork is an update that does not require updating the software, for example, in the case where the block size is reduced from 1 Mb to 500 Kb.

Usually the fork comes into effect through MASF (Miner Activated Soft Fork) — a mechanism in which the largest mining pools signal the readiness to upgrade. But there is also UASF — User Activated Soft Fork . With UASF, instead of waiting for support from the mining pools, the force for activating the fork comes from the exchange, holders and investors. Currently, the concept of UASF is theoretical and has not yet been implemented into practice.

There are more than a thousand different forks of bitcoin, which are also called altcoins, and the capitalization of some is comparable to the bitcoin’s. This is Litecoin, Ripple, Bitcoin Cash, Novacoin, Darkcoin. Altcoins can also be branched out (for example, Dogecoin is the fork of Litecoin, Expanse is the fork of Ethereum, Stellar is the fork of Ripple).

All the Bitcoin’s technical data is located in the cloud and is available to anyone at github.com. This is the source code of Bitcoin, which since 0.9.0 version has been called the Bitcoin core.

There are services (for example, coingen.io), with which you can create your own fork for a fee without any programming skills. Of course, this way it isn’t possible to create something fundamentally new and different from the other thousands of forks. But it is possible to create something like Dogecoin.

Once the currency is created, it must be distributed among as many people as possible. New forks are always firstly presented in a specially created topic on the forum bitcointalk.org. The creators tell about the new currency key idea, give the program sources for new forks, share info about mining pools, exchanges, where holders will be able to exchange the currency and many, in addition, they often arrange competitions and giveaways of some pre-mined coins. In the same thread of the forum, there is a discussion of all the new forks.