Blockchain fork hard fork vs soft fork, hive forked from steem blockchain

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What is a Fork?

Fork in blockchain technologies are referred to as changes that happen on the blockchain protocol in most cases these changes, helps secure the network from theft to make the named blockchain more scalable and user friendly.
A fork influence the validity of communication protocol whereby a system of rules can be allowed by two parties or entity of the same blockchain system splitting the blocked currency into different class to allow more interoperability among users.

In addition for a fork to happen there have to be agreement among users willing to split up the network currency since blockchain technology focuses on building decentralization among users reaching this agreement could be an easy task for a fork to take place does not necessarily mean the blockchain will completely stop operation but will help enhance the quality/speed of operation of such blockchain.

Looking from my point of view fork isn't such a bad idea as it creates more security, operability, immutability in the said blockchain.

Reasons for having fork

  • Settling difference; it's a known fact different individuals have different views in handling situations and in the case of decentralization everyone one can air their personal views and decide to make certain changes or decisions once they are not convinced with a current situation with the help of fork in the blockchain individual differences can be settled easily.

  • Scalability; with the fork, more activities can be carried out uninterrupted without any unusual glitch when performing certain tasks like completing transactions.

  • Bugs and security; with the help of fork hacking theft can be easily reversed which can help secure the blockchain protocol.

Forks can occur accidentally this type of fork occurs when two/more miners find a block at the same time.
While intentional fork can be subdivided into the hard fork and soft fork.

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For the hard fork, all nodes need to be upgraded to meet the standard of the validating node's protocol, while the soft fork is quite the opposite.

Explain in detail what a Hard Fork is with examples (Can be of any blockchain).

It's important to take note whenever a hard fork takes place in any blockchain a split up will occur which will create a new validation system for the blockchain when this split happens users and developers of blockchain will need to make necessary upgrades to their system.
However, this split would not affect the old block performance rather it would make it more scalable.

Hard fork mainly occurs when some users are not actively in agreement with the current governing system of a blockchain network or when the need arises for enhancing the block performance in terms of security and operability.

Therefore, in general, a hard fork is thorough changes that occur in a blockchain network protocol. which gives birth to a separate blockchain network or new currency in the blockchain.

A hard fork is also important in blockchain as it increases the block security, adds more operational functionalities to the old blockchain it can also help the reverse transaction that was hacked it also increases block speed in making transactions.

A typical example of the hard fork was the splitting of bitcoin (BTC) to bitcoin cash (BCH) in 2017 this happened as a result of a disagreement between the block users which comprise of miners, developers, and node validators who were having different points of view on how the network reward will be distributed, how to improve the network scalability, the BCH users wanted to increase the block size which will make transaction processing time faster while BTC user opposes the notion.

As a result, of this disagreement, a new currency was introduced.
BCH is also known as one of the most successful bitcoin splits being the 11th cryptocurrency with the highest market cap in 2021.
It also increased the block size by eight megabytes making it very fast.

A soft fork is a backward-compatible upgrade that allows a new set of rules to communicate in the blockchain network without altering any compromising changes in the old and new blockchain.
Simply put a soft fork will allow a new upgrade of nodes and at the same time, old nodes can still communicate with new nodes without undergoing an upgrade of the old nodes.

Generally, a soft fork is meant to improve block performance by implementing new updates/upgrades in a block network and at the same time work simultaneously with the old block without altering any communication rules between the old and the new block system.

Bitcoin taproot which is meant to be implemented in November 2021 is an example of the soft fork that will improve bitcoin transaction protocol importantly this upgrade will make the bitcoin network integrate the use of smart contracts just like the ethereum blockchain, with this more developers will be encouraged to create a more interesting decentralized application on the bitcoin network.

Bitcoin taproot upgrade will bring about interesting changes on the network block such as increasing block transaction time provide users with privacy using Schnorr signatures, which allows multi-signature In making transactions.

What are the differences between Hard Forks and Soft Forks?

Hard forksoft fork
A hard fork is a radical change that requires users or developers to upgrade or update their systems to the latest version before validation or invalidation of transactions can take placeWhile for a soft fork developers can choose not to upgrade the old block and still have access to use the new updated version.
Hard forkSoft fork
Hard forks effectively lead more often lead to permanent chain separation which makes older versions not compatible with the new versionSoft fork doesn't lead to permanent creation of a separate chain
Hard forkSoft fork
Those holding tokens from the old blockchain can be granted tokens on the new oneNo old token will be given to new holders
Hard forkSoft fork
A hard fork often changes the rules of block communication protocola soft fork doesn't change block communication rules but works with the older version and also adds improved features to the block.

Explain the following Bitcoin Forks and explore the blockchain where necessary. Indicate if they are hard forks or soft forks;

Bitcoin Cash

BCH is a block hard fork that was created in 2017 as a result of the conflict that leads to an increase in the blockchain size increase.
This increase in block size improved the reduced transaction waiting time making transactions be processed in a very short time.

BCH block was created on block 478558 in August 2017 at the time those who own bitcoin were also given some proportion of BCH.

Accessing block 478558. from blockchain.com gave the following results below

Which means block 478558. that resulted in the separation of BCH has another alternate block result.

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Segregated Witnesses

Is block soft fork it can b used to implement changes in the blockchain bitcoin transaction by improving the block size limit increase transactions speed

Write on the fork Steem and Hive Hard and show similarities in their Genesis Blocks.

It can be found from the lecture there are various reasons for having a fork in any blockchain in the case of steem and hive it was due to some disagreement which leads to the split or creation of a new hard fork.

On Friday 20th March a new hard fork hive was launched from the steem blockchain, at the time of the hard fork all steem users existed on the hive creating a mirror of equal active users on both blockchain.

Just like steem blockchain hive is an open-source decentralized proof of stake DPoS governance blockchain created from existing steem blockchain.

Some identical similarity between the two social blockchain is users reputation just like steem users can easily see their current reputation as they make progress on each platform as another similar feature is powering up or down of steem or give power which is completed in 7 days.

For both platform genesis blockchain, we can also spot some similar features

Hive

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To have access to have block explorer I will visit this link hiveblocks.com

From the search page when I input 1 to search for the first block I got the blow result

Steem

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Going to the link steemworld.org and exploring the block I searched for block 1 and got the blow results.

From the two screenshots, it can be observed that both blocks at 1 had 0 transactions have similar dates with the same witness

Conclusion

It can be summarized from the assignment task that forks in the blockchain are not harmful to any network system it only helps to improve the block scalability by adding interesting features to the block such as security, transaction speed, and operability among block users.

Hard forks create permanent changes to blocks whereby new currency can be created while soft forks help improve the old and new blocks.

Hive blockchain is a hard fork implemented from steem blockchain.

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