Yeah when a Bitcoin fork occurs, anyone holding any amount of bitcoins will also get the same amount of the new currency. This situation doesn’t automatically happen but you need to claim these coins. And each coin has a different claiming mechanism.
Thank you so much! I understand how it works now.
Hi @filip I have a question on Soft Forks:
Since Soft Fork Updates Contract the Rule Set, what would happen to Previous Blocks that are already in the blockchain but do not comply with the New Rule Set? How can it affect the entire blockchain?
I’m guessing that the new Rule Set would not affect previous blocks (like in hard fork updates) but the difference is that in Hard Fork updates, Previous blocks are still Valid. I just need a second opinion and/or clarification
Thank you so much!
You are correct. The hard fork update is determined on which block it becomes the rule so all blocks up to that height are valid by the old rules.
Is updating to ETH EIP - 1559 a contraction and therefore a softfork? That is why miners who disagree with the update are proposing to increase the hash power to achieve 51% and promote an attack by the ETH chain?
Hi Filip! This question may not be relevant to this lesson but I wonder if each block contains / provides space for the same amount of data?
Thanks, Poyan
A block is limited to 1MB.
Thanks It came up in the next lecture.
Hi Filip,
You describe soft forks as un-democratic (as a con).
But isn’t part of the definition of soft fork that the majority wins out. If the majority refuses to go with the new contracted rules - the blockchain will be built using the old rules. But if the majority accepts the new rules - then the blockchain will be built using the new rules. So majority wins. Sounds like democracy to me
Another pro / con definition that I see is:
Soft-fork con = not backward compatible. If the majority decides to change, then everyone has to change to the new rules. The old rules no longer are compatible.
Hard fork pro = backward compatible in that old rules remain a subset of the new rules. Miners that do not upgrade can still play in the new rule space (if I have understood correctly?)
Yea personally I see it that way to, I guess its more up to interpretation.
Soft fork is more backwards compatible meaning nodes don’t need to upgrade to accept the new rules, while in hard fork all nodes need to upgrade. In the end it still kind of depends on the type of the upgrade.
Interesting. I saw it as the other way, but maybe I have got my understanding wrong.
So for softfork - there are a bunch of rules that were previously valid, now made invalid. So a miner have no choice but to change their software if the majority of miners changes. A miner can’t stay on the old software (unless the majority decide not to conform with the new rules), otherwise they will never earn blockchain revenue. So this is what I saw as not backward compatible - a miner cannot stay on the old software - must upgrade to the new software to stop using the rules that have been discarded.
But for hardfork - I had assumed that miners could still keep on old software, just implementing a subset of the valid rules, but they will miss out on the opportunities posed by the new rules.
But yes I could see that for hardfork, it would depend on the nature of the rules changes as to whether it would be mandatory to upgrade or not.
Still learning !! Cedrtainly appreciate your feedback and comments.
@Alko89 I just did the segwit lessons and so now I understand why a softfork upgrade would be more likely to be considered backward compatible - because it does not change the underlying bitcoin code (adds no new functionality). But I think it is probably more correct to say that backward compatibility is not so much a function of the softfork versus hardfork - but more in the way the change has been implemented. So segwit was designed and implemented to be backward compatible. Both can segwit compatible, and non-segwit can exist in the blockchain.
Hi Filip
I’m a bit lost on the rule change of a hard fork, Does one miner decide to change the rule and other miner follow? Does that not make a security risk?
If hard forks be implemented regularly which means new coins are regularly added, would this devalue the original coin?
Just trying to get my head around this.
Nodes must update their software to be able to accept the updated chain once the fork happens or they are left on the old one.
It depends on the fork, if its an improvement, people would more to the updated version. Most of the time its just some angry mob trying to make their way.
Thanks once again your a wealth of knowledge
I’m still really fuzzy on the pro and cons of each fork. I don’t get the whole, “you only need 50% with soft forks” statement. With hard forks, miners realize there’s new rules once they see new blocks that wouldn’t have been valid before. So wouldn’t that mean that splitting the chain is less likely with hard forks because of the clarity? I also don’t understand how with hard forks you can choose to keep your old chain but with soft forks you’re “forced” to follow the new chain. The whole idea of creating “new currency” via forks really hasn’t been described yet so maybe these things will become more clearly after further videos.
https://academy.binance.com/en/articles/hard-forks-and-soft-forks
This will clarify your questions.
I never found the quiz with the 6 questions. Only the first appeared. (1/5). The rest of the quiz did not open. Not sure why. I would like to take the quiz.
Thank you. I will check the article at that site. Sounds extremely complicated making work of mining challenging if not frustrating?