Btc2x bifurcation
About bitcoin, the news is flying all over the world these two days
specifically, a foundation called BTN foundation announced that it has set up a bitcoin bifurcated development team to launch a new bitcoin bifurcated BTN. Now its official website is online, which is called btn.kim. Two days later, bitgo, another bitcoin development team, announced that it would fork out from bitcoin. Its name is BTF, which literally means "bitcoin faith"
according to Yao yuan, a well-known bitcoin columnist, bitcoin will "have 10 children" in December, and will at least bifurcate out of 10 "children" such as BCX, SBTC and LBTC
as soon as these things happened, the bitcoin market began to fluctuate again, some investors blew up, and all kinds of rumors came out: why so many forks? Is bitcoin out of order
in fact, the bifurcating of bitcoin is far more complicated than what it shows. If we don't explain its historical background clearly, we really can't understand what happened
< b > the origin of bifurcations: the origin of the bifurcations of bitcoin has existed. The so-called bifurcations refer to the accounting differences caused by different underlying protocols. According to Xue Hongyan, director of the Internet financial center of Suning Financial Research Institute, bitcoin is jointly maintained by a number of point-to-point decentralized nodes. The orderly operation of the whole system depends on the consensus of all nodes, that is, there is a set of recognized standards for key issues such as which transactions are acceptable and which nodes have accounting rights. This set of standards is deployed in the underlying protocol of blockchain and implemented automatically
but nodes are operated by people after all, which is the so-called "miner", but everything operated by people will be different. For example, the miners of some nodes go online every day, while the miners of some nodes go online occasionally; Some nodes are in the eastern hemisphere, some nodes are in the Western Hemisphere... In a word, e to various reasons, over time, bitcoin has different underlying protocols in different nodes
if different versions of underlying protocols are running in a node, different standards will appear, which will result in bifurcation. If the nodes can deal with these version differences and finally form a unified standard, the bifurcation will eventually disappear, which is called soft bifurcation. If the difference cannot be eliminated, when some nodes continue to run different versions of the protocol, the bifurcation will continue, which is called hard bifurcation
it's easy to solve the problem of soft bifurcation, that is, if the account book is wrong, just modify it. Hard bifurcations are not easy to solve. No one thinks he is wrong and explains them according to his own standards. In the end, he can only go his own way and keep his own account. At present, bitcoin bifurcation refers to hard bifurcation
< b > the first bifurcations: the first hard bifurcations of bitcoin technology upgrade are purely technical reasons. The settlement performance of bitcoin itself is limited. According to the original technical agreement, bitcoin can only support up to seven settlements per second. This was not a problem in the early days. With the fire of bitcoin, more and more people flocked in, and the settlement became more frequent than ever. At this time, the original technology was not enough
therefore, in the middle of 2017, some miners proposed new technology agreements, but the other miners did not agree with them. Eventually, both sides held one end and ran their own underlying agreements, which was the first bifurcation in the history of bitcoin
However, with the development of bitcoin trading means, speculators graally regard the bifurcation as a means of money collection, which leads to a great change in the nature of the current bifurcationthe principle is that each bifurcation is essentially equivalent to the issue of a new digital currency, which is linked to bitcoin. The target audience is larger than the general ICO, and it is easier to be accepted by ordinary users than issuing a new digital currency directly
because the team that creates this kind of bifurcation takes the lead, it is very easy to control the transaction of the new currency, especially in the early stage, and it only needs a small cost to control the price trend of the whole currency. This leaves a lot of room for speculation. The forked team only needs to make the new currency accepted by the users, and then it can artificially raise the price to a sky high price. After the real users come in, they can sell all the money they hoard, and get high profits out of thin air
on October 25 this year, a domestic team forked out bitcoin gold (BTG). Two days before the forking, Jiang Zhuoer, CEO of leibitchi, denounced the forking as money looping: "Liao Xiang, founder of BTG, had g 200000 BTG coins in advance before the forking, and wanted to convert them into 20000 bitcoins, looping 80 million yuan."
The advantage of bifurcations can be seen, so that the word "bifurcations create value" has become popular in the field of currency speculation. For this reason, a new word "IFO" - first token issue has been derivedHe Sheng, a well-known financial blogger, once told the media that most of the so-called IFO may evolve into the operation of collecting money by harvesting leeks. "Many previous ICOS are doing IFO, and ICO needs to write a white paper and go to the stock exchange to gain market recognition, while IFO does not even need to write a white paper."
this also explains why bitcoin is becoming more and more profitable. To put it bluntly, everyone wants Nakamoto
Can< b > not bifurcate
whether it's Hong shuning of Suning finance, or Mike & Chen, CEO of bitgo, a bitcoin wallet software provider and one of the project leaders of segwit2x; Mike belshe, the instry actually refuses this bifurcation of bitcoin. In fact, real blockchain practitioners have always hated speculation. At present, the leading enterprises in the domestic blockchain instry have clearly expressed their opposition to the overflow of bitcoin bifurcation. For example, when Xunlei launched the first popular blockchain project in China, its CEO Chen Lei said in an interview: "Xunlei opposes all speculative activities using blockchain, so it is definitely against bitcoin for the purpose of speculation and leek cutting arbitrage."
However, to solve this problem, it is not enough to have an attitude alone, but to have specific means. The best way is not to let bitcoin bifurcatethis is difficult to achieve. Bitcoin's own technology is a relatively primitive blockchain technology with limited computing power. It can barely cope with the previous transaction scale. In view of the current situation of bitcoin fire, it is difficult to support. So sooner or later bitcoin will have to solve the problem of its own computing power
but there is no hope at all. With the innovation of blockchain technology, there will always be some new ways. For example, the shared computing proposed by Xunlei can effectively improve the total amount of computing power and rece the cost per unit of computing power without changing the existing hardware facilities. If bitcoin is combined with shared computing, it can effectively solve the problem of bitcoin's computing power limit without new bifurcation
secondly, the bifurcations for the purpose of cutting Chinese chives can be supervised by means of supervision. For example, compared with the real name system of special currency wallet, the real name system of transactions can effectively prevent the risk of Financial Bureau. At present, the real name system has been implemented in some blockchain projects, and has achieved good results. For example, Xunlei's blockchain is the first blockchain application to introce the real name system in China, which basically eliminates the hidden danger of malicious speculation
in a word, there is a way. It depends on whether bitcoin players accept it or not, and there is a process to implement it. It takes time. Therefore, at this stage, it is better for us to stay away from the bifurcations of bitcoin in various names
Q: What is bitcoin bifurcation and why
A: the reason why bitcoin bifurcates is that the underlying technology of bitcoin is blockchain. Some people begin to think that bitcoin's block capacity is too small and there are always congestion. So they ask for bitcoin's upgrade and expansion. Some people think that bitcoin's function is too single and its future development is not optimistic, So these people ask bitcoin to have the function of building DAPP (decentralized application), and some support it, while others oppose it. This kind of divergence can be understood as the bifurcation of bitcoin
Q: the classification of bitcoin bifurcation
A: there are two kinds of bifurcations of bitcoin, one is soft bifurcations, the other is hard bifurcations, so what is soft bifurcations
Q: the formation principle of soft bifurcation
A: soft fork refers to optimizing and modifying bugs in the original bitcoin network to improve the capacity of the block, such as 2m, 4m or 8m, 16m. The segwit lightning network is the mainstream solution, which is equivalent to a traffic jam on the main road, and the development team will build an auxiliary road to help the main road to divert congestion
this is a mild solution, which can make the original bitcoin network compatible with the network after soft bifurcation, and the main transaction of bitcoin is still on the main chain
Q: disadvantages of soft bifurcation
A: of course, there are disadvantages of soft bifurcation, that is, it can only solve the temporary congestion problem, and after the implementation of soft bifurcation, it can only keep the network unobstructed for a few years. In the future, it needs continuous expansion, which has an impact on the stability of the system
Q: what is hard bifurcation and its formation principle
A: another solution is hard fork, which means to upgrade the bitcoin system again, change the height of the block completely in the form of code, and take bitcoin unlimited as the mainstream solution. Generally speaking, it is equivalent to a traffic jam on the main road. We directly abandon this road and find a place to build a three-dimensional transportation hub on the ground and underground. All new cars use this transportation system, which changes the block size of the bitcoin network and optimizes the processing speed of the network
Q: what are the disadvantages of hard bifurcation
A: but hard bifurcations also have disadvantages, that is, they are not compatible with the original bitcoin system, which requires all people in the bitcoin network to support hard bifurcations. If some people do not support hard bifurcations, there will be two versions of bitcoin network, which will proce two bitcoins. The blockchains of the two bitcoins form a competitive relationship, This kind of internal friction will lead to greater price volatility and uncertainty of bitcoin's future situation
Q: a classic case of bitcoin bifurcation
A: Eth and etc are typical cases of hard bifurcation. The Dao project is a crowdfunding project initiated by slock.it, a blockchain Internet of things company. It was officially released in May 2016. As of June of that year, the Dao project has raised more than $160 million. It wasn't long before the Dao project was targeted by hackers. Because of the huge loopholes in the smart contract, the Dao project was transferred to ether coin with a market value of 50 million US dollars
in order to recover the assets of many investors and stop the panic, vitalik buterin, the founder of Ethereum, finally proposed the idea of hard bifurcation, and finally completed the hard bifurcation in block 1920000 of Ethereum through a majority vote of the community, rolling back all the Ethereum coins occupied by hackers
even though Ethereum hard bifurcates into two chains, some people who believe in the tamper proof property of blockchain still stay on the original chain of Ethereum classic. Today, Ethereum (ETH) and Ethereum classic (etc) are ranked in the top 20 in the global cryptocurrency market value, which is one of the reasons why they are regarded as classic cases in the field of hard bifurcations
Q: the difference and influence between soft bifurcation and hard bifurcation
A: for users, soft forking will not proce new bitcoin currency. They only need to understand the transaction mode and K-line characteristics of bitcoin. They only need a mainstream wallet of bitcoin
hard bifurcation will generate new currencies, and there may be more than one new currency. Once the core code of bitcoin is modified and the core code of bitcoin is reconstructed, there may be a second time for the first time, and btc1 and btc23456789 may all happen. Users will be confused. Which kind of coin would be better for me to trade? What kind of bitcoin do I use to pay for a large circulation range? In short, users with dyschooia will crash. Moreover, users need to download wallets of different hard bifurcated systems, which brings complex operation to save and pay bitcoin
however, correspondingly, the user's right to choose has also increased. You can choose the bitcoin code developed by the development team you like and trust. When the bifurcations of bitcoin are not clear, when the soft bifurcations start to activate and the computing power starts to vote, the best way for users to deal with it is to wait and see. Don't recharge and extract bitcoin in the process of bifurcation
in addition, soft fork will change the settlement mode of bitcoin all nodes, and some small settlement will be confirmed by the third party node, namely settlement channel. The settlement channel may incur part of the service charge. Similar to the role and business model of UnionPay
what is bitcoin bifurcation? The difference and influence of soft bifurcation and hard bifurcation
In the discussion of blockchain, bitcoin and other digital currencies, we often hear the word "bifurcation". So what is bifurcation? What is the effect of bifurcation
blockchain
before talking about bifurcation, popularize a little knowledge of blockchain, so as to help us understand what bifurcation is more easily (if you don't have any concept of blockchain, please read my previous articles, which are all popular words to help you understand what blockchain is)
blockchain, as the name suggests, is a chain composed of blocks. Of course, this kind of chain is just a figurative metaphor. To put it bluntly, data blocks are connected orderly. In bitcoin, the transaction records of bitcoin are stored in the block. The size of the block and the space occupied by the transaction records determine how many transactions can be stored in a block. These transaction records are packaged into blocks, and then the blocks are connected one by one to form a blockchain
We know that bitcoin software, like other software, needs to be updated and modified regularly in order to make it better. So a new version will appear, but not everyone will download the new version, so one miner will run the old version, and some will run the new version. If the old and new versions are not compatible, the blockchain will bifurcate. Because there may be differences between the version blocks and the old version blocks, they cannot be connected to the same blockchain, so there will be two or even more chains, which is called bifurcation
soft forking
soft forking refers to that when the new consensus rules are released, nodes that have not been upgraded will proce illegal blocks because they do not know the new consensus rules, resulting in temporary forking. This kind of bifurcation will be graally repaired with the upgrading of nodes
hard fork
hard fork refers to the permanent divergence of the blockchain. After the release of the new consensus rules, some nodes that have not been upgraded cannot verify the blocks proced by the upgraded nodes, and usually hard fork occurs. Therefore, in the field of digital currency, hard bifurcation often leads to the emergence of new currencies. For example, the hard bifurcation of Ethereum led to the emergence of eth
What is bifurcation? What is bitcoin bifurcationIn September 2017, the central bank and other seven departments jointly issued the "notice on preventing the financing risk of token issuance", which defined ICO (initial coin offerings) as unauthorized and illegal public financing, suspected of illegal selling token bills, illegal issuing securities, illegal fund-raising, financial fraud, pyramid schemes and other illegal criminal activities
in 2017, ICO became very popular relying on the concepts of "digital currency", "blockchain" and "smart contract". However, only by publishing a "white paper" through a few people's team, and even some can start financing activities without a white paper, this operation mode has laid great risks for investors, and the outside world has always disputed the legitimacy of ICO. In September last year, the central bank and other seven departments gave a clear definition of ICO and stopped all kinds of token financing activities. Seven departments said in the announcement that token issuance financing is essentially an illegal public financing behavior without approval, and is suspected of illegal sale of token tickets, illegal issuance of securities, illegal fund-raising, financial fraud, pyramid schemes and other illegal and criminal activities
However, after the ban of ICO, a new way of playing the coin circle, IFO, has sprung up. The so-called IFO refers to the branching currency issuance based on mainstream currencies such as bitcoin and Ethereum. On the basis of the original blockchain of these mainstream currencies, another chain is split according to different rules to generate new digital currency. People who hold mainstream currencies can get new currency after bifurcating in the process of IFO, and IFO has become a new means of virtual currency financingon August 1, 2017, the birth of BCH marked the first generation of bifurcated coin in the coin circle. The size of bitcoin block is only 1m, and the smaller the block is, the smaller the capacity is, the slower the bitcoin transaction will be. In order to solve the problem of bitcoin block congestion, BCH blockchain successfully separated from the main chain in block 478559, resulting in a new cryptocurrency. The default block size is 8m, which can also realize the dynamic adjustment of block capacity. At the same time, people who used to hold bitcoin can get BCH for free at a ratio of 1:1
since its birth, there have been different opinions about whether BCH is a new branch of bitcoin or another kind of "counterfeit currency". However, after several ups and downs, the price of BCH began to develop steadily. As of 20:30 p.m. on February 26, the price of BCH reached 8058.8cny, and that of BTC was 67558.69cny, according to the data of fire coin
following the success of BCH bifurcation, more and more new virtual currencies have been proced through IFO, such as BTG (bitcoin gold), BCD (bitcoin diamond), SBTC (super bitcoin), etc. Chen Yunfeng believes that according to the explanation of the technical level, part of the forked currency is the upgrading or improvement of the original technology. If it is a forked currency in this sense, it is difficult to say that it has no value. Moreover, when the regulatory level repeatedly prompts the investment risk of virtual currency, the investment value should be judged by the investors themselves
Shi Qingwei, the founder of sharing finance, said that IFO is a new way to play in the past two months, and most projects generated by IFO have no investment value. Some IFO issuers believe that they are not raising funds through ICO, but a fork of mainstream currencies such as bitcoin and Ethereum, which have a large number of users. After users get the forked coins, they usually ask to join the transaction, and then the issuer of IFO will get a huge profit because of the number of forked coins g in advance. He further said that most of the bifurcated currencies proced by IFOS have no investment value and even higher investment risk than ICOS"pre dig" fork currency or there is a risk of fraud
so, how does IFO make money According to the daily economic news, miners develop bifurcated coins in bitcoin blocks through technical means, and then distribute the developed bifurcated coins to bitcoin holders in proportion, and gain value in the transaction and circulation. Some of them will also be traded and circulated through the digital asset exchange. It is worth noting that most of the forked coins will be "pre g" before they are officially released. The pre g forked coins are equivalent to those obtained free of charge, so the founders of the forked coins can easily make profits. In the market, some people think that IFO in the name of "pre digging" is actually a more naked game of token issuance
on November 15, 2017, the domestic well-known super bitcoin team announced that it will implement the bifurcation at the 498888 height of bitcoin blockchain on December 17, and start the technical test of zero knowledge proof and intelligent contract supporting Turing complete, and expand its block to 8MB. It will also launch the intelligent contract in early March 2018 to increase the scalability of BTC Zero knowledge proof will be launched by the end of May 2018, and dynamic checkpoints will be removed by the end of November 2018 to realize fully decentralized mining. If the split is successful, a new split coin, SBTC, will be proced. The original bitcoin holders will give it away one by one, with a total amount of 21.21 million. Among them, 210 thousand are pre g by the split team foundation, which is mainly used to encourage early developers to invest in ecological construction and foundation operation
Song Qinghui, a famous economist, said that e to the lack of regulatory policies and the extremely low threshold of user participation, IFO itself may be suspected of illegal sale of token bills, illegal issuance of securities, illegal fund-raising and financial fraud. Many new virtual currencies born through IFO have little value, and there may be fraud and fraud, Investors need to pay enough attention
According to Shi Qingwei's analysis, on the one hand, IFO will cause great division in the community; On the other hand, the people who issue IFO are basically some investors, and few of them really do the Ifo project in a down-to-earth way. Because they do not have strong executive power and values, it is difficult to do the Ifo project. To put it bluntly, some IFO projects are short of money, and they will not do it after cash out, and there is no particularly big risk. Just intensify market acquisition and cut leeks. The most typical risk is fraud risk, and the other is the risk of market operation. Some investors have been trapped in the Ifo projectaccording to Zhang Yexia, senior researcher of Yingcan consulting, first of all, there is no clear definition of IFO financing activities in China's law, and there is a risk of being prohibited; The second is fraud risk. With the rise of the concept of IFO, it is easy to attract criminals to use concepts such as "mainstream currency bifurcation" and "blockchain technology" to attract investors, but in fact there is no so-called token issuance and technology research; The third is the technical risk. At present, the technologies and standards of mainstream currencies, such as bitcoin and Ethereum, are different. There is no same technical standard, and the technical level is also different. Therefore, the hidden dangers of technical security can not be ignored
Chen Yunfeng believes that for the financing behavior in the name of IFO, the investors can only obtain the value-added income through the digital currency trading market without the actual application scenario of the bifurcated currency itself. This form of financing activity has not been clearly defined in law and needs to be regulated by the relevant departments
Hong shuning, chief researcher of the blockchain Laboratory of Suning Financial Research Institute, believes that the risks of IFO are manifested in the following aspects: first, there may be serious loopholes in changing the agreement without careful consideration; Second, the software released in a hurry will inevitably have a lot of bugs; Third, every IFO will divert some miners, causing fluctuations in the trading smoothness of bitcoin; Fourth, e to the low acceptance of bifurcated currency, the price fluctuation may far exceed that of bitcoin, which is unfavorable to investors
At the same time, Hong shuning said that in the real sense, IFO should not pre dig because it goes against the original intention of bitcoin development, fairness and freedom. In fact, like ICO, IFO is a disguised means of financing. Teams that need to make profits in advance should issue their own digital currency, not under the banner of IFOis illegal
supply and demand
when compared with other virtual currencies, bitcoin always mentions "fixed output 21 million". In the early years, bitcoin had not been exposed to investors in a large area. It proced a lot and g a lot, but there was no demand. But now purchase bitcoin, the price is expensive, the output is small, the demand is big
analysts of jiafengruide believe that when there is an imbalance between supply and demand, commodity prices will be affected. Influenced by the policy, many bitcoin holders are now keeping a wait-and-see attitude. The decrease of bitcoin in circulation in the market and the increasing demand for bitcoin in the market are bound to push the price up, but in fact, it will not be the investment speculators who come into the market at this high level who will benefit in the end
popularization of regional chain
the report released by UBS in October mentioned the problem of regional chain technology. The report shows that by 2027, the global investment value of regional chain technology will reach 300 billion to 400 billion US dollars. And the regional chain as an infrastructure development, will be applied to more and more scenarios
at that time, whether the popularity of regional chain will raise the price of bitcoin is also full of uncertainty
investor confidence remains unchanged
although many institutions and financial giants are short of bitcoin, investors are still confident in the future value of bitcoin. After all, in history, is there any trading proct that can soar 7.54 million times in eight years
analysts at Jifeng Reed said that 10 years ago, the impact of the financial crisis left many countries so far unshadowed, and the share price bubble continued to expand, and investors would worry whether the original financial system would collapse again. Bitcoin, which has a strong performance, will attract more investors with capital inflows, thus driving up prices. In a way, bitcoin is already a safe haven
although the trading of bitcoin was suspended by China in September this year, bitcoin surged by more than 233% after de Sinicization< In November, bitcoin began to hard bifurcate, that is to say, the regional chain was divided into two parts, which is equivalent to doubling the issue of bitcoin, which means that the value of bitcoin will be diluted. Affected by the impending start of hard bifurcations, bitcoin started on November 9 and has been on the decline for four days
the suspension of the 2x fork, originally scheled for November 16, has eased the anxiety over the expansion of the bitcoin instry chain, and the market is a little relieved of the possible collapse crisis caused by the fork
bubble greater risk
many investors have seen the bitcoin appreciation and profit margins after they have entered the bitcoin trading market. However, the current domestic large-scale bitcoin trading platform has been completely closed, and the regulatory level has not relaxed the entry of bitcoin into the domestic market
bitcoin, as a speculative commodity, has great bubbles and unknown risks. We tend to ignore the risk, and it is often the risk that damages the funds in our pockets. When participating in a high-risk market, we must reasonably allocate personal assets, such as the allocation of stable financial procts such as stable profit selection investment plan. We must not use all our wealth to allocate high-risk investment procts
in a word, bitcoin has risen dramatically in recent years. It's hard to avoid some words like "you are the richest man in China now if you bought bitcoin eight years ago". But eight years ago, you didn't know that bitcoin could be as brilliant as it is today. You might as well change your vision and look for the next "bitcoin".
1. Segwit2x completes the hard fork upgrade, that is, the 1m block becomes 2m. And most of the computing power of the whole network supports the upgraded btc1 (or the compatible version of btc1), so that BTC maintains a chain
2. The segwit2x hard fork failed, and the BTC continued to maintain the 1m block size. Most of the computing power of the whole network runs on the node version that is not upgraded, such as bitcoin core 0.15, so that BTC maintains a chain
3. Segwit2x hard bifurcation is successful, but it splits into a new chain, namely two chains. Btc1 and bitcoin core 0.15 are supported in the whole network. It's the old 1m blockchain. And the new 2m blockchain. At present, both miners and developers hold opinions on both sides. I don't know the specific support. Users are currently in the melon eating crowd
in my opinion, in the first case, the best way is to complete the hard fork upgrade and get the support of computing power
the worst case is the third. Because in the end, a chain will die. When a chain dies, all the transactions generated in the chain will be lost, which will lead to most people losing money
the second situation has nothing to say.
section one: why do you split up when you don't say a word
the concept of bifurcation originated from bitcoin
as we know, bitcoin trading is based on bitcoin blockchain network (one block by one forms a chain of front and back Association, forming a bitcoin blockchain network). Since a block is a block, it must have capacity (let's fill in the block, it is nothing more than a collection of codes), The size of the block capacity will limit the efficiency of the transaction. If the block capacity is too small, the smaller the number of transactions will be. Once the transaction volume is too large, it will cause congestion
the capacity of bitcoin block is only 1m, and it can hold only 5-7 transactions. In the past, there were relatively few users for bitcoin transactions, so this capacity is no problem. However, with the rise of bitcoin price, more and more users swarmed in, and the bitcoin block could not accommodate so many transactions, resulting in congestion
bitcoin is anxious: slow down, brother Dei, I can't keep up with your trading speed. Hello! Users are also anxious: brother, can you hurry up
this is a big problem, not only because we have limited patience, but also because bitcoin's positioning is currency. As a currency, you should pay and collect money quickly, accurately and ruthlessly. If you are always so slow, when can you realize the currency attribute? So, this is a big problem
of course, the bitcoin community knows the importance of this problem. As for how to solve this problem, the bitcoin community is divided on whether to expand the capacity of bitcoin blocks (as we have just said, it is too little capacity of bitcoin blocks that leads to slow transaction speed and congestion)
the controversy is mainly divided into two camps:
the original development team of bitcoin, led by core, believes that bitcoin is an electronic gold of value storage, which will destroy its core once it is expanded
however, the mining team led by Wu Jihan believes that bitcoin should be a kind of currency with rapid circulation in the future, and it needs to be expanded to solve the problem of transaction congestion. Because of the decentralized nature of the blockchain, no indivial or organization can decide how to "expand" the bitcoin system. Everyone has their own opinions, and their opinions are divided. No one is willing to give in. Therefore, everyone goes their own way. The bitcoin chain has split into BTC and BCH chains, and over time it has evolved into the so-called "bifurcation"
this is the origin of bifurcation
what happens after the second section bifurcates
for blockchain, bifurcation is the change of blockchain protocol, which is similar to upgrading the blockchain to make up for the shortcomings of the system. This is just like our current mobile phone software often prompts you to upgrade
however, we know that blockchain is decentralized. Unlike your mobile software, developers can upgrade when they say so. In the world of blockchain, any modification needs the consensus of all members. No one can decide when to change or how to change the underlying agreement of blockchain
therefore, when the original development team of bitcoin and the miner team have differences, the system will be divided into two parts, and two new systems based on the original blockchain will appear. Everyone has their own problems, and no one can intervene. In this way, the bitcoin system is divided into two chains: BTC and BCH, which are called "bifurcations", and BCH is called bifurcated currency (the bifurcated currency of bitcoin)
in fact, not only BCH, but also bitcoin has many bifurcated coins. Why is BCH the first thing to think of when it comes to bifurcated currencies? This is because BCH is a successful bifurcated currency. When its market value is the highest, it ranks the fourth in the list of cryptocurrencies, next only to bitcoin, Ethereum and EOS
section 3 hard fork and soft fork
let's make a metaphor: if bitcoin system is the trunk of a big tree, then BCH and other fork coins are the branches of the tree. However, bifurcation is not as simple as this metaphor. It can be divided into hard bifurcation and soft bifurcation
first, hard bifurcation: goodbye, never see again
the BCH we mentioned above belongs to hard bifurcation. Hard bifurcation means that nodes using old software can no longer verify blocks proced with new software nodes. If you want to verify, you can only upgrade. After upgrading, it is equivalent to changing the track and running on another new system. Just like BCH to BTC, BCH is a brand new track (a brand new chain), and the coin on this chain is BCH (bitcoin cash). Then, nodes using BCH system can no longer go to BTC network for transaction verification. Hard bifurcations, generally speaking, mean going their own way. There is no intersection any more< Second, soft bifurcation: getting better to meet again
soft bifurcation is opposite to hard bifurcation. Soft bifurcation means that nodes using the old version can verify the blocks proced by nodes using the new version, and nodes using the new version can also verify the blocks proced by nodes using the old version. The two versions are compatible
the way bitcoin upgraded its isolation witness in 2017 is soft bifurcation. In the whole process, it doesn't matter whether we use the old version or the new version, because they are compatible. The new version only solves some problems better. In essence, we are still running on the bitcoin chain, and there is no new coin
to sum up, the difference between soft fork and hard fork is whether nodes using old software can be compatible with nodes using new software. Compatibility is soft fork, while incompatibility is hard fork.