hard fork

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English[edit]

Noun[edit]

hard fork (plural hard forks)

  1. (cryptocurrencies) A rule change of a blockchain such that the software validating according to the old rules will see the blocks produced according to the new rules as invalid; the new blockchain resulting from such a split.
    Coordinate term: soft fork
    Bitcoin Cash is a hard fork of Bitcoin.
    • 2017 November 8, Alex Hern, “'$300m in cryptocurrency' accidentally lost forever due to bug”, in The Guardian‎[1]:
      Some are pushing for a “hard fork” of Ethereum, which would undo the damage by effectively asking 51% of the currency’s users to agree to pretend that it had never happened in the first place.
    • 2020, Lorne Lantz, Daniel Cawrey, Mastering Blockchain, O'Reilly, →ISBN, page 61:
      As it pertains to blockchain technology, a hard fork is an upgrade to mining software that makes a change to the network that requires the participation of all miners.

Further reading[edit]

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