Crypto Comics - What is Fork

I tried to explain what Fork is in comic strips.

TL;DR

I explained what Fork is and how Fork works.

Some Takeaway

The fork is a way to update the blockchain. Think about updating the software on your computer, the fork is updating the blockchain protocol and changing rules of the blockchain. However, the fork is a disagreement between the two miners who validate and invalidate the same block at the same time. It creates a chain split as the agreed miner will continue working on the original blockchain while the disagreed miner will work for the new blockchain. Even though the previous blockchain will continue working uninterrupted, the split of the blockchain will diversify the difference into a different stage of the future blockchain.

Soft and Hard Fork

There are two different kinds of fork: soft and hard fork. A soft fork is a software upgrade with backward compatibility. It means soft fork only upgrades the functionality of the blockchain to improve it. While a hard fork is non-backward compatible which completely creates its own ecosystem with new features that will permanently change the blockchain.

Security

The hard fork offers a more secure feature than a soft fork since the hard fork diversifies its chain completely from the original blockchain and its non-backward compatibility forces the hard fork to move away from the past operation.   

Resolving Disagreement

A fork is a way to resolve disagreements in the blockchain. Since the blockchain works under consensus, not everyone will eventually agree with each other. A fork offers a way to diverse disagreements into its own future while agreed participants can continue working their way with the original plan.

Bitcoin Cash vs. Bitcoin

Bitcoin Cash is a hard fork from Bitcoin. The idea was that the soft fork of Segregated Witness (SegWit) technology did not fundamentally resolve the scalability issue that Bitcoin was originally faced with. Bitcoin Cash could resolve such problems by increasing block size four times and increasing its transaction volumes. It increases transactions more efficiently with less wait time and less cost. Such a solution further pursues Satoshi’s vision to become digital cash. Of course, Bitcoin Cash had its own hard fork in Bitcoin SV which further pursued Satoshi’s vision about scalability with faster transaction speeds.

Ethereum Classic vs. Ethereum

Another hard fork happened in 2016 when Ethereum was hacked from The DAO hacking event that caused Ethereum to hard fork itself away from the original blockchain to secure its new blockchain. Such a fork was intended to abandon the broken technology and to form a new blockchain with more security features. 

In conclusion

The fork is a way to resolve the disagreement in the blockchain by creating an updated version of the blockchain or a completely new blockchain.