Bitcoin Forum

I was around for the first fork, the one true bitcoin (kidding), and then there were a ton of others (really thought bitcoin pizza was going to take off  :D ).. but what I don't know and can't seem to find is if it's still forking a bunch like it use to?  Also, if it is or did again, lets say you kept your coins on say Coinbase exchange (like a fool)..would they keep them like they use to?

Thx!

Bitcoin itself doesn't fork, it's only correct to say that Bitcoin forked when there's a major split in the network and both are claiming to be Bitcoin. Instead you should say that people are creating altcoins by forking Bitcoin. I don't know if people still do it, probably yes, but it's irrelevant if those forks are not listed on exchanges, because you can't do anything with them. The hype around BTC forks died a long time ago, these days the hype is about Bitcoin NFTS and new altcoins.

I mean they are considered hard forks no? I guess I see what you mean, as to not confuse people.  I'm also curious if there's ever been a soft fork.

Edit: I know this is not really supposed to be brought up, but it goes hand in hand (hope mods understand) but I'm curious about all this as for say monero and ethereum as well.

core devs have made it possible to update the network without user node consensus for most things(backward compatibility), so the need for development forks (contentious upgrades that split the community) have died down. so exchanges see no need to accept/represent different things if there is no community contention/split choice.

however anyone can copy code, tinker and tweak it and create their own altcoin(custom forks).. however those altcoins require getting recognition by merchants, service,exchanges. which is then a battle the individual needs to climb via getting people to adopt their altcoin, popularise it into being worthy of recognition

I think they can't deal with the fact that they all fall under the altcoin umbrella, therefore, they target Bitcoin as an easy way out and call it a fork. What they seem not to understand is that whatever is not Bitcoin is definitely an altcoin and nothing more.

The extreme move by these people have obviously not proven any productive and that has killed the trend else, we would have seen tons of projects being called Bitcoin fork.

What i knew, every proposed bip, once implemented become forks. Most of them are called soft fork. Segwit is one of the major soft work happened in bitcoin, this includes Taproot.
About hard forks, last time i heard about it is the unlimited. What i usually heard now are those altcoins and defi, like wrapped btc in eth, i knew there is one in bsc chain too and etc.

I haven't heard any news yet about the new Bitcoin fork but if this is about exchanges that keep fork coins it depends on the fork coin if they will keep it or distribute these fork coins to their users but I think they won't distribute it instead they ignore it to keep their keys safe from potential attacks.
I remember Coinbase before I received my fork coins but not all fork coins they only give BCH and BTG into my wallet.

It's quite literally called a fork...bitcoin cash was a fork.  Yes it's also an alt/shitcoin etc..but it's still a fork

I think you need to draw the distinction between forks, hard forks, and soft forks.

Forking creates an altcoin. That's when you just take the bitcoin code and change it how you want to create an altcoin. Lots of older altcoins were created this way, well before the BCH fork that started the trend of trying to pass off altcoins as Bitcoin and using the Bitcoin name to try to trick people.

And then upgrading the actual Bitcoin network would be either hard forks or soft forks. And these get voted on to pass them so they can be implemented.

A hard fork would not be backwards compatible, so basically it would be a clean break saying we don't care about the network not working for certain people or whatever anymore we just want to update the network without worrying about those sorts of consequences. This would create two separate blockchains, two separate protocols. Anyone still operating on the old bitcoin protocol after the hard fork would be completely separated from the updated protocol. Basically this could lead to a split in bitcoin itself.

A soft fork is a backwards compatible way to update the network protocol. And this is what has essentially been decided is the best way to upgrade Bitcoin so everything stays consistent, bitcoin stays immutable, everything keeps working, and network participants can upgrade at their leisure because everything still works no matter which version of the protocol you use. People running the old version just can't do whatever the new updated version does.

forks are forks because they are not knives(single straight line path)

then you have to define the cause of the fork, the effect afterwards
a. was it a mandated upgrade that cause some users to split but those not following the mandate declare their fork an altcoin
b. was it an individual that took the code and made a separate project away from the bitcoin community
c. was it a upgrade whereby compliance majority meant the possible other chain did not grow/popularise/continue
d. was it a bug that did cause a fork but was later orphaned, where one popularised and chose one path
e. other(cant be bothered to list more)

soft fork is about compliance/ignorance of change(c) whereby you dont see a secondary chain continue/deviate
hard fork can be more controversial which depending on factors can result in (a,c,d)
independent altcoin creation using historic chain to a milestone before going its own way is a fork(b)
2013 leveldb bug was a hardfork which caused(d)
taproot was a soft as backward compatibility didnt need controversy/consensus(c)
segwit was hard(but promoted as soft) it caused(a)
and yes segwit august activation was not individuals making an alt independently.
(the 2017 altcoin, it used bitcoin 2009-2016 based code) but were made to change their code 'magic' after the mandated split to not cause crossover)

I wasn't there when the major hard fork happened like BCH and BSV. But, I guess I used to use Bitcoin back then. I have checked my Blockchain.info account (which is blockchain.com now) and checked my address if I was holding any BTC back then. Unfortunately, I did some transactions but never held my Bitcoin for longer than a month or so.

Blockchain.info is used to provide your private keys which you could import to another wallet which they still do. But, I don't know about exchanges if they kept the forked coins of their users or not. But, if they did, that is something unethical.

Exchanges can support or not support a fork. If they support a fork, their customers will be able to claim the fork coin on Coinbase. If they don't support a fork, their customers will not be allowed to claim the fork by storing bitcoin on Coinbase.

It is similar to other centralized exchanges because to claim a fork, you need private key and centralized exchanges don't give users any private key.

Forks are altcoins, and not Bitcoin. They are incapable and low quality altcoins.

How many Bitcoin forks are there? (https://forkdrop.io/how-many-bitcoin-forks-are-there)

All the forks that came after BCH and BSV died out really quickly. There hasn't been any widely known new one in a long time. For exchanges it is not worth supporting something which is going to die anyway. They are not going to keep track on every new pump and dump which comes out and waste resources on it. You don't own the Bitcoin held on exchanges if you don't control the keys. They don't have any obligation to give you free money anytime one of these new scams gets launched.

That would be preposterous to expect criminal exchanges to keep forked coins of users. I witnessed both forks for BCH and BSV, though with the eyes of a novice then. The noise preceding those events was as if Bitcoin was going to die off once the hard forks happened. It was crazy and those who had their Bitcoin in selected private wallets (and exchanges, I can't be sure anymore) got airdropped the forked coins. It was free money for so many people. Many exchanges profited from that by withholding those forked coins of customers that couldn't withdraw on time to private wallets to enable them claim. That event was an eye opener for so may people. It's the same thing with those who send exchange addresses for staking certain tokens to claim airdrops. That's not a good idea. Use private wallets.

There is nothing wrong with this subject or with bringing it up. You just have to learn to use more accurate terminology.

To answer your question, there is nothing stopping anybody from creating a copy of Bitcoin protocol or Bitcoin blockchain and creating a new altcoin like BCH, BCH-SV, BSV, BTCX, BTD,.... like 2017. The only thing stopping them is the fact that creating such useless copies can only work for a little while at the beginning (ie. 2017) but people slowly learn about their uselessness and most importantly learn how to dump their "airdropped coins" which means the price of these shitcoins drops a lot quicker now compared to the beginning where majority of users were confused about how they should sell them.

Never heard any new forks lately but still see some projects like the typical meme coins attaching Bitcoin's name to their project.

And as for the actual forks or new split tokens came out that are kept on exchanges, the exchange has the final say whether they'll support that fork or not. If they won't support it then it means free money to them and won't distribute the fork coin to their users.

They announce it but I think it's one of the major jackpots that most exchanges got.

Most Bitcoin forks are lazy solutions to basic problems of Bitcoin, such as scalability, which resulted in BCH and other forks until the market was filled with all low-fee solutions, but since most of the developers of these forks are looking for quick profit, and instead of paying attention to POW, the interest in POS has become more, and also these currencies They can be generated easily, so the focus became on more tokens instead of Bitcoin forks.

In the future, privacy may seem attractive and we hear about bitcoin privacy. Therefore, as long as there is a possibility of profit, you will see developers diligent in solutions, and as long as there is a possibility of fees, the CEXs will accept those forks.

Your question is understandable without confusion and it is about hard fork and not soft fork. If there is a soft fork, no new coin will be created, only hard fork can lead to the creation of a new coin and the last one that happened was in some years. If it is soft fork, there will still be new improvement proposals that will lead to soft fork to improve bitcoin network.

It's not profitable at all now as there is no demand for Bitcoin Forks. People are now busy making Baby of every trending project. Like DOGE went up, they made a shitcoin called Baby Doge.
And that stuff is funny as you understand how most of the investors start from Bitcoin/Ethereum and then reaches the level of these shitcoins and end up losing all their money.
And guess what? They then start with investing in Bitcoin/ETH only. :D

If people keeps on forking Bitcoin I think it is an advantage to hodlers because of the fact that we may get free money from those forkcoins. I remember when Bitcoin Cash emerged as a fork of Bitcoin way back in 2017 wherein hodlers get the chance to claim that free money.

After those failed forked coins, altcoin developers created another trend, Wrapped Bitcoin tokens.

If anyone already witnessed the fiasco of Terra stable coin $UST, they will understand risk of Wrapped Bitcoin tokens. They are not bitcoin and just altcoins with pegs to Bitcoin. However, their pegs can be depegged and I prioritize my capital safety than convenience. Saving some money in transaction fees (by selling Bitcoin to stable coins, then using stable coins to buy altcoins) by buying Wrapped Bitcoin tokens is not worthy in my opinion. If wrapped tokens depeg, I will lose my money.

If I buy bitcoin, no depeg and I can sleep very well.

I get that..you knew what I meant. I also understand what you’re saying overall.  There’s a few forks that are worth something still and not dead..bcash ($240), bitcoin gold ($23),  BSV, hard fork of Bcash ($73).  I think there’s one or two others worth a few bucks. Bitcoin Diamond was worth something at one point, but it’s now at .08 cents, and so dying it is , but not dead. It’s nothing crazy but it’s incorrect to say they died. Sadly the Bcash and BSV community are very much alive.



Actually I think it’s yourself who’s confused. I know the terminology. I’ve been around for a mn. A fork is split off of a coin, of course the reasoning and how it’s handled is broken down by what type of fork (soft / hard).  The blockchain records the split, so it’s not just a copy of the code. Anyone can copy most coins code. If this is what a fork was, there’d be no reason for the terminology to exist, it wouldn’t be a facilitated split registered on the blockchain. Copying code is simply creating an altcoin. It has no tie to any coins blockchain or ever has (sure it’s connected in how it’s just taken/stolen code..but there’s no facilitation taking place within btc for it to be created, so a different story). Bitcoin Cash, the first fork, did more than just copy bitcoins code, they changed it (block size). There’s a reason you get to keep the forks, and store or sell them…because it was split off from coins you owned. Its not an air drop.

Also I was saying I hope it’s okay to discuss as I was referring to alts forking being discussed, not Bitcoin.


Appreciate the detailed response. I’m familiar with the types of forks. I just didn’t exactly break down the terminology or word it exactly correct. I also know the majority (if not all) were hard forks.  Edit : forgetting there have been, like SegWit.  Not sure if Taproot is also considered a soft fork but I would imagine it is. So I think there’s been two soft forks  ???

I didn't have Bitcoin on any exchanges or in my wallet. I remember something about a casino. They have listed BSC or maybe it was BSV (I don't remember correctly), but they have airdropped the same amount to the user account that was holding Bitcoin back then. I didn't understand why people were getting those money for free. I only understood that last year when I learned more about forks. I also checked if my blockchain.info wallet qualifies for any forks like BSC or BSV, but I noticed that I hadn't held any Bitcoin back then. I was doing only transactions with my Bitcoins. Do you know which exchanges didn't airdropped forked coins to their users who have Bitcoin Balance?

Besides Bitcoin Cash, the rest of the forks didn’t really catch on. Many were listed on small exchanges and the forked bitcoin chains basically died off one by one.

Later in 2018 was when Bitcoin SV was forked but it was a fork of Bitcoin Cash and since one is listed on some exchanges but due to some contrevosary it was delisted on some exchanges like Binance.

But yeah those Bitcoin Pizza and Bitcoin Diamond or Bitcoin Plus all pretty much died off.