A soft fork makes previously valid blocks invalid. A contraction of the rule set. A hard fork makes previously invalid blocks valid. An expansion of the rule set.
What are some of the reasons why you would do a hard fork? A consensus rule change. Block size change.
What are some of the risks with performing a hard fork? A split chain. Hash power split. Splits the community. May create a new currency.
Soft fork is where previously valid blocks become invalid (Rule contraction) and a Hard fork is where previously invalid blocks become valid (Rule expansion)
Remove confusion in the rules, create a new currency, and have a democratic way to promote change.
It can split the community if nodes don’t agree with the new consensus rules, creating a split in hash power resulting in a less secure network.
A soft Fork is when an update contracts the size of the needed size of new blocks making prev. valid blocks invalid. and a hard fork is when the consensus rules are expanded the needed size of a new block making prev. invalid blocks valid.
Some of the reasons why you would do a hardfork is when you change the consenus rules.
Risks of performing a hardfork is the previous blocks that were invalid now become invalid. Which splits the hashing power in half and splits the community and making a new currency which can be argued as good or bad.
What is the difference between a softfork and a hardfork?
Hardfork is an expansion of the ruleset and softfork is a contraction of the ruleset. A hardfork will split the miners and community and create a new chain and currency. A softfork will not create a fork as eventually the longest chain will be accepted and the fork therefor disregarded.
What are some of the reasons why you would do a hardfork?
If you would like to accept bigger blocks the only way to do that is to hardfork.
What are some of the risks with performing a hardfork? The new chain may not be adopted by community and/or miners. Without miners, or just less miners, security is at risk. The fewer miners there are the more vurnerable the security becomes.
A hardfork is an update that makes previously invalid blocks valid whereas a softfork is an update that makes previously valid blocks invalid.
It is a clear update and democratic ie consensus
A split community and chain as well as hash power
What is the difference between a softfork and a hardfork?
A softfork is an update that makes previously invalid blocks valid whereas it is vice versa for a hard fork.
What are some of the reasons why you would do a hardfork?
Updating the consensus and changing the rules. It is democratic.
What are some of the risks with performing a hardfork?
You can split the community and thereby the hash power.
A soft fork contracts (tightens) block chain rules such that previously valid blocks become invalid; whereas, a hard fork update expands the rule set so that previously invalid blocks become valid. A hard fork update can result in an actual chain split if there is not 100% agreement among miners to update their rules accordingly. Soft fork updates are unlikely to cause a permanent fork in the block chain if miners with a combined hash power greater than 50% decide to adopt the updated rules.
Perhaps to create new coins or to implement an expanded set of consensus rules.
A permanent split in the chain; reduced security if number of miners on each fork of the chain has greatly reduced from when all were on the legacy chain; split community.
1 A hard fork requires 100% consensus to adopt expansion of rule set, a soft fork requires only a majority for contraction.
2 clear and democratic
3 splits the chain, splits community
1.) Hard forks updates make previous blocks invalid valid while soft forks do the opposite. Make previous valid blocks invalid
2.) Hardfork updates can be very democratic which means consensus rules are used to verify
3.) Hash power is split which lowers security for the blocks
What is the difference between a softfork and a hardfork? A softfork makes previously valid blocks invalid so is like a contraction that tightens the rules. A hardfork makes previously invalid blocks valid so is like an expansion that makes the rules more inclusive.
What are some of the reasons why you would do a hardfork? A hardfork needs 100% of the update to agree to the new rule so it ensures that everyone adopts the changes to the consensus rules.
What are some of the risks with performing a hardfork? If the hardfork is not accepted by all then there can be a split in the blockchain between those who accept it and those who don’t.
Hard forks make previously invalid blocks valid (expand rule set) and soft forks make previously valid blocks invalid (contract rule set).
To establish a clear update that is democratic in nature - meaning miners do have the option to continue mining on a chain with a different rule set than the updated chain.
Some risks include splitting the chain, splitting the community, and splitting the hash power.
What is the difference between a softfork and a hardfork?
Hardfork makes previously invalid block valid by expanding the rule set for valid block. Softfork makes previously valid block invalid by contracting the rule set for valid block.
What are some of the reasons why you would do a hardfork?
Reasons for hardfork would be major network updates that expand the rule set for valid blocks. These might happen to better secure the network, increase block size, or fix a bug in the protocol that could be harmful to the network among other reasons.
What are some of the risks with performing a hardfork?
Risks of performing hard forks would be splitting the chain and the community between those who do and do not support the update as well a potentially creating a new crypto asset separate from the original asset, ie ETH and ETC. A major splitting of the community/network could hurt security on both the original and new asset by effectively halving the number of nodes to secure it.
Soft fork is less democratic ( kind of forced update). All previous chains will automatically switch to new updated chain since it still matches within their rule set. Hard forks are more democratic, since you must update in order to use the new chain, otherwise there would be separate chains and the old one would create a new currency.
You would do a hard fork since the rules are clear, or if you wanted to create a new currency (ex: BTC Cash)
You would divide your community when you commence a hard fork (update consensus rules), and you would also split the hash power reducing the security of both chains.
Q.1.What is the difference between a softfork and a hardfork?
A.1. Majority rule, no chain split versus democratic, new currency, split chain
Q.2.What are some of the reasons why you would do a hardfork?
A.2.Clear update, new currency
Q.3.What are some of the risks with performing a hardfork?
A.3. Split chain, split community, hash power split
Softforks makes a previously valid blocks invalid while hardforks make a previously invalid blocks valid
Some of the reasons to do a hardfork is to update the chain or to create a new coin with different block structure like increasing the block size
The risks are splitting the hashpower which is a security issue, splitting the community between supporters and non supporters