Fork (Blockchain Fork)
A change to a blockchain's protocol rules that creates a divergence in the chain's history.
Explained Simply
A fork occurs when a blockchain's rules are changed. A soft fork is backward-compatible — old nodes can still participate. A hard fork is not backward-compatible and creates a permanent split into two separate chains. Famous hard forks include Bitcoin Cash (split from Bitcoin in 2017) and Ethereum Classic (split from Ethereum in 2016 after the DAO hack). Forks can happen due to disagreements in the community, planned upgrades, or emergency fixes.
Example
The Bitcoin Cash hard fork in 2017 created a new chain with larger blocks. Anyone holding BTC received an equal amount of BCH on the new chain.
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