This website will be updated with relevant ongoing information about Bitcoin hard fork research.The general way in which rule changes have been made to Bitcoin so far is through the use of , specifically the process outlined in (at least these days).Soft forks are backward compatible — users are not required to upgrade their software clients in order to stay on the network with the new rules.In recent years, there have also been multiple attempts at building support for changes to the Bitcoin network, mainly for the purpose of .A hard fork requires that everyone abandons the current and moves over to a new network with a different set of rules; a process not too dissimilar from the creation of an altcoin.So what the difference between a hard fork and an altcoin?Before getting into the explicit differences between these two terms, both of them should be clearly defined.defines a hard fork as follows:A permanent divergence in the block chain, commonly occurs when non-upgraded nodes can’t validate blocks created by upgraded nodes that follow newer consensus rules.It’s a bit more difficult to find anything close to an acceptable definition for altcoins.

“alternative cryptocurrencies launched after the success of Bitcoin.”Although there are similarities between Bitcoin hard forks and altcoins, there is also at least one major difference that is common, although not a requirement.A hard fork of Bitcoin will preserve the distribution of bitcoins from the point at which the fork takes place.This means that anyone who had 10 bitcoins on the original network will also have 10 coins on the new network.While new altcoins can also be created in this manner, there is almost always a new, initial distribution of tokens via a crowdsale, mining, or some other mechanism.In the past, , , and others have also promoted the concept of launching new altcoins with the initial distribution based on the distribution of bitcoins at a certain .This is kind of a way to help bootstrap the network effect of a new token by piggybacking on top of bitcoin’s network effect.Having said that, there is much more to a cryptocurrency’s network effect than its token distribution — perhaps most notably, how users value those tokens.If everyone moves from the original Bitcoin network to a new, hard-forked network, then it is fair to call the new network “Bitcoin” and dismiss the original network completely.

If everyone does not move over to the new network, then the altcoin moniker may be more accurate.Some would say that the difference between an altcoin and a hard fork is simple because the “true” version of Bitcoin will have the most hashing power behind it.However, an attempted hard forking change to Bitcoin’s algorithm (currently SHA-256) could potentially lead to the existence of two blockchains people are calling Bitcoin for a long period of time.ethereum atm locationsThe version of Bitcoin with an alternative proof-of-work could be much more popular than the chain that uses SHA-256.The differences between altcoins and hard forks get a bit blurry when a contentious hard fork takes place.bitcoin occupyIf Bitcoin is hard forked and only half of the network moves over, then what has really happened?bitcoin pizza portal

Is the hard fork an altcoin?Which network deserves to be called Bitcoin?Are either of them really Bitcoin?A less severe version of this issue occured with .When Ethereum hard forked to allow those who lost funds due to buggy code in ’s smart contract to get their ether back, some 85 to 90 percent of the users moved to the new chain.This left , now referred to as .So which Ethereum is the real Ethereum and which is an altcoin?Right now, the general social consensus is that the hard-forked version of Ethereum is Ethereum.bitcoin khan academyMany of the most prominent Ethereum figures, , have thrown their support behind the new network, and nearly everyone refers to the new chain as the true version of Ethereum.Of course, it begs the question: What would happen if Ethereum Classic gained a larger market cap and general level of activity than what is currently referred to as Ethereum?ethereum asic miner

Would everyone then start referring to Ethereum Classic as Ethereum or would everyone keep calling it Ethereum Classic?One caveat to the above scenario is that the owns the trademark to “Ethereum” in the United States and the European Union.It’s unclear what action the Ethereum Foundation would take (or could take) if everyone started to refer to Ethereum Classic as Ethereum again.Having said that, this issue does not exist in Bitcoin.This issue may be about to play out in the real world as , who is behind the , plan to release an Ethereum Classic investment vehicle and call it the “.”Things can get rather confusing as sometimes you can’t be sure if you’re hard-forking the network, creating an altcoin, or both.bitcoin bank nederlandWhat looked like a hard fork at first could turn into an altcoin a year later under the right (or perhaps wrong) circumstances — even if it appears that the hard fork has the vast majority of support before it happens.From the , it would appear that hard forks that fix an issue at the protocol level that is negatively affecting everyone on the network generally do not lead to the creation of an altcoin.bitcoin blackberry wallet

Anything else can get weird.As stated in the recently-published hard fork contingency plan, Poloniex agrees that any contentious hard fork must include replay attack protection.Without this, exchanges cannot continuously and properly operate.Unlike a planned fork where the block height is known, Bitcoin Unlimited can activate at an unknown date and time; therefore it is not possible to plan for such an event.We will support Bitcoin Core continuously as BTC.bitcoin price decreaseIn line with our current internal policy, if you have Bitcoin on balance at the time of the fork, we will make Bitcoin Unlimited available for withdrawal provided it is safe to do so.bitcoin cambio monetaAt a minimum, any new fork must include built-in replay protection.Without replay protection, we would be unable to preserve customers' Bitcoin Unlimited without halting Bitcoin withdrawals, which is unfeasible.