Explain bitcoin and blockchain splits like I'm five

[nelruk]

Recently, I was talking with some friends and they were talking about bitcoin and shitcoins. So, in the middle of the conversation I realized that was very difficult to explain the recent events about the splits.

For instance, I know there are three models of bitcoin right now: Bitcoin (original project), Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin Gold (coming soon). My real problem is that I don't know how to explain these divisions with clarity.

How can I explain the bitcoin current status to people in order to understand how these divisions work? 

[Crypington]

If you wanted to get a little technically, you could just point out that Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, and BitCoin Gold share a common BlockChain up to the point of the fork... Therefore, everyone who held Bitcoin before the Fork gets the same amount of the new coin. 

It is a weird concept to explain it appears that money is being created out of thin air, a concept people can't relate to. 

[danilocarneiro]

In the case of Bitcoin Gold we should consider after fork core developers will exclusively mine the next 8000 blocks until mining is open to the public. I'm kinda skeptical about BTG open governance but anyway it will be interesting to see how it will do.

[jseverson]

I like to think of it as making multiple copies of an image and applying various filters to them. You basically get a complete copy of the original because it's too much of a hassle to create another image from scratch, and you edit it as you desire, all the while keeping the old one. You then go around telling everyone the new image is better because you increased its brightness, resolution, etc., and that everyone who still uses the old one as their wallpaper or something should switch to your new and improved one instead. All the pictures are open to everyone though, so while everyone has a copy of your new one, they have the option of not using it, or completely abandoning the old one for it. Now, instead of everyone in the group having the same wallpaper, the group gets rather fragmented.

That's about as simple as I can explain it. Sorry if my analogy is bad lol.

[frankbitcoin]

I like to think of it as making multiple copies of an image and applying various filters to them. You basically get a complete copy of the original because it's too much of a hassle to create another image from scratch, and you edit it as you desire, all the while keeping the old one. You then go around telling everyone the new image is better because you increased its brightness, resolution, etc., and that everyone who still uses the old one as their wallpaper or something should switch to your new and improved one instead. All the pictures are open to everyone though, so while everyone has a copy of your new one, they have the option of not using it, or completely abandoning the old one for it. Now, instead of everyone in the group having the same wallpaper, the group gets rather fragmented.

That's about as simple as I can explain it. Sorry if my analogy is bad lol.

I think that's a really fun analogy and an easy way to understand it. 

[Bitcoinpro]

instead of the blocks going up in a straight line they go onto a different path, only an off chain run split would ever go back to the main chain (technically not a split) and it would not be protected by the same hashing power unless it was a co-mined electrotype that was programmed to interact with the main chain,

[verifyas]

Here is a write up we did that explains the concepts of forks and what are soft and hard forks. Hope it helps:
https://medium.com/@verify.as/explain-forks-hard-and-soft-forks-to-me-fda79644aa97

[bitcoinmaniac52]

Picture walking down a sidewalk. That is the blockchain. A fork is when someone splits the sidewalk in 2 directions. There is one final block, and then the sidewalk is forever "forked" into two paths.

[nelruk]

Here is a write up we did that explains the concepts of forks and what are soft and hard forks. Hope it helps:
https://medium.com/@verify.as/explain-forks-hard-and-soft-forks-to-me-fda79644aa97

I like to think of it as making multiple copies of an image and applying various filters to them. You basically get a complete copy of the original because it's too much of a hassle to create another image from scratch, and you edit it as you desire, all the while keeping the old one. You then go around telling everyone the new image is better because you increased its brightness, resolution, etc., and that everyone who still uses the old one as their wallpaper or something should switch to your new and improved one instead. All the pictures are open to everyone though, so while everyone has a copy of your new one, they have the option of not using it, or completely abandoning the old one for it. Now, instead of everyone in the group having the same wallpaper, the group gets rather fragmented.

That's about as simple as I can explain it. Sorry if my analogy is bad lol.

The link is very useful and also the analogy. Thank you, both.