Author Topic: Soft Fork vs. Hard Fork (Read 452030 times)

bitcoinforum.com · « **on:** January 31, 2018, 01:12:07 PM »

A good question asked by OratesFratres and a very good repply by asaltandbuttering on r/bitcoinforum

Q:

Quote

Could someone explain to me what these even mean? I'm still new to this, it's just that I'm still learning the terminology.
Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoinforum/comments/7u2dq9/soft_fork_vs_hard_fork/

A:

Quote

Hard fork creates a new network which folks must update their software to join. Soft forks do not create a new network.
Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoinforum/comments/7u2dq9/soft_fork_vs_hard_fork/dthkeyb/

emma.lee1890 · « **Reply #15 on:** September 27, 2018, 04:32:32 PM »

Quote from: bitcoinforum.com on January 31, 2018, 01:12:07 PM

A good question asked by OratesFratres and a very good repply by asaltandbuttering on r/bitcoinforum

Q:
A:

Exactly what happen when they occur? Mining stopped? Coin balance of owners will be transferred to new wallet automatically?

emma.lee1890 · « **Reply #16 on:** September 27, 2018, 04:33:05 PM »

Quote from: thomas-xmrcgpu on February 04, 2018, 01:57:53 PM

I'm always for the hardfork.
Significant improvements can be done. People just have to adapt. And they will if money is involved

softfork is a change to the bitcoin protocol wherein only previously valid blocks/transactions are made invalid

emma.lee1890 · « **Reply #17 on:** September 27, 2018, 04:33:44 PM »

Quote from: bitpay on March 16, 2018, 09:58:25 AM

Hard forks is a permanent divergence in the the block chain, commonly occurs when non-upgraded nodes can’t validate blocks created by upgraded nodes that follow newer consensus rules. While Soft forks is a temporary divergence in the block chain caused by non-upgraded nodes not following new consensus rules

Since old nodes will recognize the new blocks as valid, a softfork is backward-compatible. When a majority of miners upgrade to enforce new rules, it is called a miner-activated softfork (MASF).

emma.lee1890 · « **Reply #18 on:** September 27, 2018, 04:34:22 PM »

Quote from: CryptoCZ on April 12, 2018, 12:53:03 PM

I believe that hard fork can solve more problems and bring more needed changes

A hardfork is a change to the bitcoin protocol that makes previously invalid blocks/transactions valid, and therefore requires all users to upgrade.

emma.lee1890 · « **Reply #19 on:** September 27, 2018, 04:35:35 PM »

Quote from: yazzy on April 22, 2018, 10:51:31 PM

Interesting topic yet again. I agree that hard fork would allow more positive results.

When full nodes coordinate to enforce new rules, without support from miners, it is called a user-activated softfork (UASF).

emma.lee1890 · « **Reply #20 on:** September 27, 2018, 04:36:16 PM »

Quote from: Garden on May 22, 2018, 12:42:34 PM

A brilliant answer and I agree with the saying that hard fork is a practice of generating new networks which ia surely more attractive option as well. You can not generate networks with the soft fork! What do you think guys in this regard?

Any alteration to bitcoin which changes the block structure (including block hash), difficulty rules, or increases the set of valid transactions is a hardfork.

emma.lee1890 · « **Reply #21 on:** September 27, 2018, 04:37:16 PM »

Quote from: KiraMan on May 23, 2018, 02:54:08 PM

Soft fork and hard fork is related to any divergence in the blockchain. A hard fork occurs when a single cryptocurrency splits in two. It occurs due to the change of the code. In a soft fork only one blockchain remains valid. Do you people agree with me?

However, some of these changes can be implemented by having the new transaction appear to older clients as a pay-to-anybody transaction (of a special form), and getting the miners to agree to reject blocks including the pay-to-anybody transaction unless the transaction validates under the new rules.

emma.lee1890 · « **Reply #22 on:** September 27, 2018, 04:37:59 PM »

Quote from: kalii on August 08, 2018, 02:37:25 PM

Yes thanks for the explanation. it's interesting to recover some forgotten knowledge!

That is one of the scenarios for a hardfork, but not the only one. It is possible for a hard fork to occur with consensus, i.e. all current users (nodes in this case) support the fork and everyone upgrades software following new rules, as I understand, usually because of a critical security risk.

emma.lee1890 · « **Reply #23 on:** September 27, 2018, 04:38:39 PM »

Quote from: traveller on August 10, 2018, 09:08:27 AM

Thank you for the explanation! So does this mean with a soft fork, the users dont have to do anything, but with a hard fork they need to update a software? I still don't quite understand when a hard fork needs to happen/ when a soft fork needs to happen. Can anyone maybe explain why each ones happen? Thanks in advance:)

A technical hard fork could also happen inadvertently via blockchain reorganisation (client discovers longer chain and abandons shorter one). Unlikely to ever happen again at current network growth but I read that this happened at least once already even with Bitcoin on 12 March 2013... and I see can be common with alts.

emma.lee1890 · « **Reply #24 on:** September 27, 2018, 04:39:28 PM »

Quote from: crypto on August 23, 2018, 01:10:45 PM

It seems like hard fork is better i was wondering what all can be done in soft fork, well thanks for the valuable information

Soft fork and hardfork have some similarities in that they occur when there is a change to the existing protocols which can occur as a result of situations like risk security issues, general consensus etc

BITCOINBTC · « **Reply #25 on:** October 31, 2018, 09:10:11 AM »

thanks for the explanation.

emma.lee1890 · « **Reply #26 on:** November 14, 2018, 05:15:16 PM »

Any alteration to bitcoin which changes the block structure (including block hash), difficulty rules, or increases the set of valid transactions is a hardfork. However, some of these changes can be implemented by having the new transaction appear to older clients as a pay-to-anybody transaction (of a special form), and getting the miners to agree to reject blocks including the pay-to-anybody transaction unless the transaction validates under the new rules. This is known as a softfork.

DemLabs · « **Reply #27 on:** November 24, 2018, 07:44:57 PM »

Thanks for explanations

coinologist · « **Reply #28 on:** November 27, 2018, 03:33:45 PM »

Quote from: traveller on August 10, 2018, 09:08:27 AM

Thank you for the explanation! So does this mean with a soft fork, the users dont have to do anything, but with a hard fork they need to update a software? I still don't quite understand when a hard fork needs to happen/ when a soft fork needs to happen. Can anyone maybe explain why each ones happen? Thanks in advance:)

Could someone please clarify this for me as well?

VladEx · « **Reply #29 on:** January 28, 2019, 07:21:44 AM »

It is an interesting topic, thank you for sharing.

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Soft Fork vs. Hard Fork