Evaluating the Role of Forks in Cryptocurrency Development: Hard vs. Soft Forks

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Looking back to how the crypto space started and on the fact that it was built on the Blockchain technology which possesses some great attributes and features like been transparent and immutable also at the same time. The Blockchain technology always depends on consensus mechanisms to work and this helps to provide security and transparency on the transactions that is been carried out on the Blockchain.

As the crypto space continues to evolve and evolve and also with the Blockchain technology evolving at the same time, I discovered that we begin to notice a lot of modifications that is addressing some issues that we might be facing either on the Blockchain network or crypto space generally. When trying to understand in depth how do the Blockchain space works, I begin to realise that we have the soft fork and the hard fork. Understanding the differences and similarities between both is very important in carrying activities in the Blockchain space.

Let me first start by establishing what we mean by Forks in the Blockchain. The word fork is not like the popular kitchen fork we know. When we talk about fork in the Blockchain space, it is a divergence in code running that helps separate two different versions of the Blockchain. What do I really mean by that? As many of us know, the Blockchain is Decentralised in nature and so it helps allow developers to be able to apply the changes they desire.

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When a particular developer comes up with a new change which they call protocols, and when the whole community I mean the group of participants agree on that new protocol to be added, at the end of the day, it result for either a soft fork or a hard fork to come up. Talking about forks, forks serve a lot of purposes depending on the type of changes desired by the developers as that will determine whether it is a soft fork or a hard fork. Most of the time, forks serve to address issues that might want to happen in the community or in the project to ensure that the project is still smooth going.

I will be talking about the Hard fork for the first time. Whenever hard fork takes place, if means two separate versions of the Blockchain is created in a way whereby the one version of the Blockchain follows the old protocol and the next one now follows the new protocol that is set which will actually carries the new changes that is desired. In order to buttress my explanation, key me point out the example of hard fork that have started, id the hard fork that carried out on 2017 that leads to the creation of something called Bitcoin Cash(BCH).

It all started in 2017 when the community actually goes against the rate at which the network is handling transactions as they belong then that the bitcoin network should be handling a lot of transactions volumes much more. The main reason why this hard fork started was that more transactions to be carried out as this will help achieve more security and also achieve the Decentralisation nature much more. At the end of the day, a final agreement was taken to have another Blockchain version under the Bitcoin network which now leads to the creation of bitcoin cash.

Briefly, let me talk about the advantages of Hard fork. Even though there are a lot of advantages that lies in it, I will say the major advantage is that it helps to allow changes to be taken and helps introduce a lot of features to be able to enhance performance. Apart from that, I have come to discover and majorly from the example of the Bitcoin cash I said, it also helps to attract a lot of investors that will help to push the project forward and at the end of the day helps the project to achieve success.

And then lastly, I will like to talk about the challenges of Hard Forks. Even though Hard fork have a lot of benefits it offers, I still believe there is still a lot of challenges that it has which need to be attended to. One of the common challenges is that it always leads to division in the Blockchain network. Most of the time whenever hardfork happens, it leads to division in the Blockchain versions. Example that happen is the Steemit and the hive saga that happens years ago. Sometimes also, hard fork usually leads to a lot of confusion among the user that if not we'll handle can even lead to the project to collapse at the end of the day.

Let's talk about Soft Forks and how it actually works. When it comes to Soft work, it works differently from hard fork. When it comes to Soft fork, there is no need for another separate version of the Blockchain to be created just that there are new changes, features that are introduced to the Blockchain to make sure that the network continues and continues to thrive.

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Trying to find Example for the soft fork that happens is the SegWit. Many of us will know about SegWit which was actually done to help improve the bitcoin network and performance and this at the end of the day helps to increase the number of transactions that can be done on the bitcoin network. After the soft fork done on the bitcoin network by introducing the SegWit helps to maintain a very strong improvement and improve the performance of the ecosystem or the Blockchain at the end of the day.

Talking about the advantages that Soft Fork gives, I will say one of the major advantages is that it helps to increase the performance and efficiency of the Blockchain network involved in the soft fork without not actually leading for the division of the Blockchain as it were during the hard fork. With Soft Fork, you are assured of the less community issue because there is no division that is happening. Also it helps to retain investors because there are no two coins or tokens created as it was during the hard fork.

Of course even with the lot of benefits that Soft Fork offers, it still needs to face a lot of challenges as that can be dealt with. Most of the time, the changes or productivity is not always at high level compared to the Hard fork and so most of the time will lead to that particular Blockchain involved in the improvement or the soft fork to have a half improvement.

As I conclude, I will like to establish that forks can not be avoided as it is part of the crypto space. In fact I will say it provides this strong mechanism for the Blockchain networks to continue growing and adapting. Even though both Hard fork and soft fork have their own separate work and features, they still offer strong advantages that can not be taken for granted.