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Title: Mapping All The Major Bitcoin Forks
Source:
Zero Hedge
URL Source: https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019 ... apping-all-major-bitcoin-forks
Published: Jul 25, 2019
Author: Tyler Durden
Post Date: 2019-07-26 12:43:45 by nolu chan
Keywords: None
Views: 1009
Comments: 2
Mapping All The Major Bitcoin Forks
by Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge
Thu, 07/25/2019 - 23:55
The emergence of Bitcoin took the world by storm through its simplicity and innovation. Yet, as Visual Capitalist's Ashley Viens details, plenty of confusion remains around the term itself.
The Bitcoin blockchain - not to be confused with the bitcoin cryptocurrency - involves a vast global network of computers operating on the same distributed database to process massive volumes of data every second.
These transactions tell the network how to alter this distributed database in real-time, which makes it crucial for everyone to agree on how these changes should be applied. When the community can’t come to a mutual agreement on what changes, or when such rule changes should take effect, it results in a blockchain fork.
Today’s unique subway-style map by Bitcoin Magazine shows the dramatic and major forks that have occurred for Bitcoin. But what exactly is a Blockchain fork?
Types of Blockchain Forks
Forks are common practice in the software industry and happen for one of two reasons:
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Split consensus within the community
These forks are generally disregarded by the community because they are temporary, except in extreme cases. The longer of the two chains is used to continue building the blockchain. -
Changes to the underlying rules of the blockchain
A permanent fork which requires an upgrade to the current software in order to continue participating in the network.
There are four major types of forks that can occur:
1. Soft Forks
Soft forks are like gradual software upgrades—bug fixes, security checks, and new features—for those that upgrade right away.
These forks are “backwards compatible” with the older software; users who haven’t upgraded still have access to the network but may not be able to use all functionality in the current version.
2. Hard Forks
Hard forks are like a new OS release—upgrading is mandatory to continue using the software. Because of this, hard forks aren’t compatible with older versions of the network.
Hard forks are a permanent division of the blockchain. As long as enough people support both chains, however, they will both continue to exist.
The three types of hard forks are:
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Planned
Scheduled upgrades to the network, giving users a chance to prepare. These forks typically involve abandoning the old chain. -
Contentious
Caused by disagreements in the community, forming a new chain. This usually involves major changes to the code. -
Spin-off Coins
Changes to Bitcoin’s code that create new coins. Litecoin is an example of this—key changes included reducing mining time from 10 minutes to 2.5 minutes, and increasing the coin supply from 21 million to 84 million.
3. Codebase Forks
Codebase forks copy the Bitcoin code, allowing developers to make minor tweaks without having to develop the entire blockchain code from scratch. Codebase forks can create a new cryptocurrency or cause unintentional blockchain forks.
4. Blockchain Forks
Blockchain forks involve branching or splitting a blockchain’s whole transaction history. Outcomes range from “orphan” blocks to new cryptocurrencies.
Splitting off the Bitcoin network to form a new currency is much like a religious schism - while most of the characteristics and history are preserved, a fork causes the new network to develop a distinct identity.
Summarizing Major Bitcoin Forks
Descriptions of major forks that have occurred in the Bitcoin blockchain:
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Bitcoin / Bitcoin Core
The first iteration of Bitcoin was launched by Satoshi Nakamoto in 2009. Future generations of Bitcoin (aka Bitcoin 0.1.0) were renamed Bitcoin Core, or Bitcore, as other blockchains and codebases formed. -
BTC1
A codebase fork of Bitcoin. Developers released a hard fork protocol called Segwit2x, with the intention of having all Bitcoin users eventually migrate to the Segwit2x protocol. However, it failed to gain traction and is now considered defunct. -
Bitcoin ABC
Also a codebase fork of Bitcoin, Bitcoin ABC was intentionally designed to be incompatible with all Bitcoin iterations at some point. ABC branched off to form Bitcoin Cash in 2017. -
Bitcoin Gold, Bitcoin Diamond, Other Fork Coins
After the successful yet contentious launch of Bitcoin Cash, other fork coins began to emerge. Unlike the disagreement surrounding Bitcoin Cash, most were simply regarded as a way to create new coins.
Some of the above forks were largely driven by ideology (BTC1), some because of mixed consensus on which direction to take a hard fork (Bitcoin ABC), while others were mainly profit-driven (Bitcoin Clashic)—or a mix of all three.
Where’s the Next Fork in the Road?
Forks are considered an inevitability in the blockchain community. Many believe that forks help ensure that everyone involved—developers, miners, and investors—all have a say when disagreements occur.
Bitcoin has seen its fair share of ups and downs. Crypto investors should be aware that Bitcoin, as both a protocol and a currency, is complex and always evolving. Even among experts, there is disagreement on what constitutes a soft or hard fork, and how certain geopolitical events have played a role in Bitcoin’s evolution. (1 image)
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Selection of Reader comments at Zero Hedge
rphb
9 hours agobut that's the thing, a currency is not supposed to be complicated, but BTC is not a currency, it is a pyramid scheme, and it is complex only in order to confuse.
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Thom Paine
12 hours agojust trust us, it all makes sense.
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EHM
12 hours agoWhat is the hypothetical limit to the number of potential forks?
Spine of Ruprecht
12 hours agoNo limit as long as each fork is assayed for purity.
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Bunga Bunga
11 hours agoNumber of computers, you need at least 2 computers to form a network.
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Silverfoot
4 hours agoAND... Electricity. What happens to your cryptos when the lights go out?
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Madd Hatt
10 hours agoWhat is the hypothetical limit to the number of currencies in existence?
Just like anyone can photocopy paper money, people can make a copy of a blockchain.
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lester 1
12 hours ago
(Edited)At least kids can enjoy and play with the benie babies. You can't do **** with digital ponzi scheme Bitcoin. The constant ups and downs adds more stress to your life.
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lester 1
12 hours ago
(Edited)Bitcoin has endless supply and is a Ponzi scheme.
Physical gold has ZERO forks and limited supply.
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Niggapleeze
10 hours ago
(Edited)Obviously you are a software neophyte.
A fork is exactly the same thing. EXACTLY! It is no different at all. OK, maybe I have to give it a different server address, but user does not see that. Just like you don't see when you go Zerohedge if the article comes from server 1 or server 2 running on Apache x.y.z or x.y.z.1. Each version increase - each new release - is, actually, a fork. Usually they are compatible with prior releases, but not always (though technically it is not a "fork" until someone changes the prior version in a slightly different way, at which point it officially becomes a fork, but the effect is the same - you can still run a diff between the two versions and pretend one is just a version change from the other). Even a small change can be a fork. But fundamentally it is the same thing.
On the other hand, someone did not change one number on a keyboard and convert gold to cash. Capiche?
And here's the other thing. Simply by typing a few digits on a keyboard, you can change the 21 million cap to 21 trillion or 21 gazillion, it doesn't matter, it's entirely arbitrary.
The amount of gold, on the other hand, is anything but.
NoCamelCase
5 hours agoyou need consensus to change the 21M cap - it's not going to happen.
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Niggapleeze
4 hours agoNo, you don't need consensus. You need a majority of NODES. Which could be one crime syndicate (governmental or private).
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NoCamelCase
3 hours agomajority of nodes = consensus.
the whole world is mining - good luck getting majority... and act quick, in 10 years the network will be much bigger
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Niggapleeze
12 hours ago
(Edited)I remember a few years ago I would argue with constantly-wrong tmosley, who was so sure ShitCoin would to to $1 million. One of the arguments was this alleged "non-fiat" nature of cryptocoins. To which I responded: it's open source, anybody can create billions more, it's trivial; in fact they can make an infinite number more if ONLY - and literally, if ONLY - a majority of nodes decide to do a fork with more - and of course they can give the new "coins" to whatever wallet they want, which will likely be their own. That is called "dilution".
On top of that, if someone built a backdoor inside, or someone with large resources (organized crime, like oligarchs or government) can become a majority, they can clean out EVERYBODY.
It is a fundamentally centralized, insecure, traceable (yes, 100% traceable, to your name, birthdate and SSN), unreliable and infinitely expandable fake currency that is massively expensive to maintain and completely reliant on internet to work.
It is the worst ******* currency ever.
They will use it to force their slave Global Currency on us. Mark my words.
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ohm
11 hours agoThe NSA has enough computing power to make all Bitcoin worthless (unredeemable) through a majority attack at any time.
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ohm
11 hours agoBeanie babies went way up in price for awhile as well. Doesn’t mean they were a good long term investment.
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Niggapleeze
11 hours ago
(Edited)
Crypto is all open source, if someone built a backdoor inside, it will be exposed within hours.No, it won't, you don't know **** about coding. It is based on cryptography. NSA has put backdoors in many cryptographic protocols. Some have been discovered, so we know they do it, but it also is unlikely all have been discovered.
On top of that, they can be broken by brute force. We know NSA has been working on quantum computers precisely to be able to break cryptography. They have spent a lot of money on it. Only a few people know if they have succeeded. Or maybe the ZioNazi mafia has?
There are tons of security vulnerabilities even in simple open source software. Apache is patched all the time, even though it has a huge developer base. Very few people actually code Bitcoin or understand the cryptography behind it.
Noting is centralized, the chart above is a great example of thatYou are right, an infinite number of Shitcoins can be trivially created. But, the entire database of ownership is held in one file. It's a distributed file, but it's one file. Compare, for example, gold. There is nowhere that says how much gold (or cash) I have. Nowhere. It just isn't tracked. But Shitcoin, it's all on the central log. So, if someone can change that log - you are saying it can't be done, but you are an idiot if you say that - they can steal everyone's money. It is absolutely centralized, more so than any currency in history.
Dilution is happening since 2012, there more than 2000 bitcoin clone coins and a few other innovative protocolsThat dilution is trivial. It's all hoarded. It's not actually dilution if it's hoarded. What will be diluted is when people spend it. When it is in CIRCULATION! Because guess what, if the NY Fed prints $500 trillion, it won't affect a single ******* thing if they store it all in a vault. Which is where 99.99999999% of your Shitcoins are.
You bring up such poor points. It's tiresome to respond.
But buy all the Shitcoin you want. I'm not stoppin' ya! But you know I'll be laughing my *** off when it goes to $0.
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rgraf
5 hours agoTry spending your gold at the grocery store. Human needs are food, clothing and shelter. Gold does not address those. It has its uses, but mostly as fake money, also. It will likely hold its value through the upcoming crash, but it's just a shiny metal that does not corrode. It has one stable isotope. Silver is going to catch up. Far greater utility and for the upcoming crash, it will be much more useful as a currency. Anybody starting in precious metals ough to give junk silver serious consideration to start with. 4 hours ago
Try spending your BTC at the grocery store. And not BTC that you transferred into USD and put on a debit card.
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Stradding-the-fence
4 hours agoTry spending your BTC at the grocery store. And not BTC that you transferred into USD and put on a debit card.
Everything translates back to USD, including the "value" of BTC. This is the core concept that you crypto-fanatics don't want to accept. It all comes back to USD (or Yuan/Yen/Euro/Rupee/Rubles/etc....)
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rphb
9 hours agoThe reason why Bitcoin forks are like a religious schism is because Bitcoin is very much a quasi religious secular cult. There is no rhyme or reason behind it, and arguments do not help these mentally trapped in its web.
They believe beyond reason, beyond evidence and they believe because they want to believe and have to believe in something, to insult BTC is quite literally like insulting their god.
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lester 1
7 hours ago
(Edited)In the next recession there will be a mass exodus out of cryptos and into precious metals.
Cryptos will never recover when this happens because confidence will be destroyed. A lot of mentally ill HODL'ers will get wiped out. You will see bankruptcies, lawsuits, criminal charges, and suicides related to cryptocurrencies.
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#2. To: nolu chan (#0)
Some interesting background info here that I hadn't come across before.
I have grown more interested in bitcoin, even bought a little recently. The exchange rate is too high. Like 7.5%
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