A hard fork is a software upgrade that has to be implemented by a blockchain. The enhancements that come with the hard fork’s new protocol are often incompatible with the existing blockchain protocol, resulting in two parts — one that follows the previous protocol and the other that follows the new one.

Forks are often initiated by crypto community members or developers who want advanced functionalities that the current network protocol failed to meet. At times, users leverage hard forks as a way to crowdsource for building new technology projects.

What is a Hard Fork?

A hard fork is like a new update to the software that runs the blockchain. It’s when all nodes in the blockchain need to accept the upgraded software or continue using the old version. If nodes of the new blockchain no longer accept the older version of the blockchain or the older version people disagree on the update, the split begins.

The split will end up creating two separate blockchains that run parallel with two different protocols. Often, hard forks occur for various reasons, including the addition of new features, enhancing specific functionalities, fixing security issues or improving transaction speed, etc.

Since both blockchain networks have different protocols, causing incompatibilities, miners will be forced to choose either one of the versions. In general, old-chain users often upgrade to the latest version to enjoy the enhanced features.

Hard forks have always been inevitable, and here is a history of Bitcoin hard forks.

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