How Many Bitcoin Forks Are There? You will be surprised!!!

[wwzsocki]

I'll start by explaining what hard fork is for less experienced members.

Hard fork (or hardfork) - relates to blockchain technology, is a radical change to the network's protocol that makes previously invalid blocks (digital pieces of information) and transactions valid, or vice-versa. A hard fork requires all nodes or users to upgrade to the latest version of the protocol software.

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/h/hard-fork.asp

For a long time, there was discussion in the community about the Bitcoin scaling problem because of 1-megabyte block size, which led to longer transaction times and an increase in fees/commissions.

The first hard fork took place at block #478559 on 1 August 2017, which transformed into a Bitcoin Cash (BCH), that offers larger blocks (up to 8 megabytes at the start).

Of course, to be honest with everybody and myself, I have to add that the BTC scaling problem is today not so important or even can be considered as resolved because we have the Lightning Network, where BTC transactions are practically instant and very cheap.

I already mentioned the most known BTC hard fork BCH and think that many of you know about another one, which is Bitcoin Gold (BTG).

So, let's dig in the true history of BTC forks (hard, soft) and summarise everything chronologically:


https://www.howtotoken.com/explained/bitcoin-forks-chronology-ultimate-list-forks/

As we can see there were already three soft forks (no new coin created) before BCH (XT, Unlimited, Classic) and Segwit fork before the Bitcoin Gold.

For sure all of you now wonder: How Many Bitcoin Forks Are There? and how many new altcoins were created?

There are 105 Bitcoin forks (hard and soft) in total. Of those, 74 are considered active projects, the remaining 31 are considered historic and are no longer relevant.



https://www.forks.net/list/Bitcoin//1/2017-01-01/2020-01-01


1. BitcoinX (BCX), 2. ABitcoin (ABTC), 3. Bitcoin Hot (BTH), 4. Super Bitcoin (SBTC), 5. Bitcoin Platinum (BTP), 6. Bitcoin Oil (OBTC), 7. Bitcoin World (BTW), 8. Bitcoin Stake (BTCS), 9. Bitcoin Faith (BTF), 10 Lightning Bitcoin (LBTC, 11 Bitcoin Cash Plus (BCP), 12 Bitcoin Silver (BTCS), 13. Bitcoin Uranium (BUM), 14. Bitcoin Top (BTT), 15. Bitcoin Pizza (BPA), 16. Bitcoin File (BIFI),
17 Bitcoin God (GOD), 18 BitEthereum (BITE), 19 Bitcoin Segwit2x, 20 Bitcoin Smart (BCS), 21 Bitcoin Ore (BCO), 22 Bitvote (BTV), 23 Bitcoin Interest (BCI), 24 Bitcoin Rhodium (BTR), 25 Bitcoin Atom (BCA), 26 Bitcoin Private (BTCP), 27 Bitcoin Hush (BTCH), 28 Quantum Bitcoin (QBTC), 29 Bitcoin LITE (BTCL), 30 Bitcoin 2, 31 Big Bitcoin 32 Bitcoin Cloud, 33 Bitcoin Candy, 34 Bitcoin Lambo, 35 ClassicBitcoin, 36 BitcoinClean, 37 Bitcoin Lunar (BCL), 38 Bitcoin Prime: TBA, 39 Anonymous Bitcoin (ANON), 40 Fox BTC, 41 Bitcoin Reference Line, 42 MicroBitcoin, 43 BItcoin Classic, 44 Bitcoin Dao, 45 Bitcoin RM, 46 Bitcoin Air, 47 Bitcoin Post-Quantum, 48 Bithereum, 49 Bitcoin Stash, 50 Bitcoin Core, 51 Bitcoin Dollar, 52 Bitcoin Metal, 53 Hex, 54 Bitcoin All, 55 BitcoinCash Zero... and many more.

45 straightforward blockchain hard forks directly or indirectly originating from the Bitcoin main chain:



https://forkdrop.io/how-many-bitcoin-forks-are-there

To be continued because this is only until 2019. I wasn't able to find a full chronological list of BTC forks from start until today, so we can assume that the list is even bigger  .

PS
There is a discussion ongoing about hard forks, soft forks, and pure copycats. Many members stated that only a couple of these coins should be considered as real coins and the majority is nothing more as worthless copycats which add nothing new at all. Of course, I fully agree with all these statements, but the purpose of this thread was to show: How Many Bitcoin Forks Are There? of course hard and soft once and I didn't provide any details about these coins on purpose.

https://www.forks.net/list/Bitcoin//1/2017-01-01/2020-01-01
https://forkdrop.io/how-many-bitcoin-forks-are-there
https://cryptocurrencyfacts.com/a-list-of-upcoming-bitcoin-forks-and-past-forks/
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/h/hard-fork.asp
https://www.howtotoken.com/explained/bitcoin-forks-chronology-ultimate-list-forks/

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[Linkkoin]

Is it just us, or really many of them even just by the name itself sound like a scam (not to mention the "coincidence" related to the release date during the 2017 bull run)?

[wwzsocki]

...it seems like there was almost a bit of spam... Bitcoin oil, ore, coal, metal, pizza. I'd guess a few of these are the same creator.

...just by the name itself sound like a scam...

I understand these concerns but I think they are irrelevant for this thread.

We all know that 99% of these forks if not all of them are worth nothing and bring nothing new to the crypto space.

The main reason for this thread is to show: How many BTC forks are there? and make it as best and detailed as possible.

PS
As I already mentioned in the opening post, I wasn't able to find a full (chronological) list of BTC hard forks from the creation until today.

There are many lists but the newest one is only until the 1st quarter of 2019.

If anybody will be able to find such a list, please share in the comments and I will be very happy to adjust my opening post with all additional information.

[20kevin20]

The Fork think is turning into a nonsense creation of coins similar to what tokens became. Instead of having 100 coins with different functions, we should've had one with all better functions added to it. But then again, we have these "crypto CEOs" that would then become irrelevant if the coin they've supported would have been unified with another coin.

I cannot see a scenario in which we'd be using so many different coins & tokens. Exchanges are filled up with shitty coins I have never even heard of in my life, and people buy them "for moon".

If this continues, I'll start losing my hope about cryptos. I want to have a few coins that are going to give me the possibility of using different functions, I don't want to have 100 shitcoins I'll never be using for real.

[mk4]

If this continues, I'll start losing my hope about cryptos. I want to have a few coins that are going to give me the possibility of using different functions, I don't want to have 100 shitcoins I'll never be using for real.

Well surprise surprise! There's only going to be more forks from here. I don't know why it's a big deal for you though. All of Bitcoin's forks are pretty much irrelevant anyway. And what do you expect? The code-base is open source. Forks are pretty much inevitable simply due to the fact that Bitcoin is open-source.

Pro-tip for you: just ignore the shitcoins.

[coolcoinz]

Now OP i have a task for you. Tell us an easy way to claim all that shit. I have never focused on forks before apart from the most popular ones (BCH, BSV, BTG), but if I could sell some of them and get some more BTC then why not. My only concern with claiming these is that some of the software might compromise the security of my BTC, although I have old addresses that technically could be used to claim some of these forks and make some free money.

[wwzsocki]

Bitcoin XT, Unlimited, Classic & SegWit...should be categorized as planned hard fork/network upgrade.

Of course, I believe you and will do my best to adjust all info in the opening post, but I will wait for more comments because I knew there will be a lot of discussion around this subject and of course a lot of different points of view or information.

As you can see, there are links provided (overall) to sources and all of them describe these once mentioned by you, as hard forks. I had no reason not to believe several sources, that give the same information, so if you can provide any other sources, with different/counter information and conclusions, I would be grateful.

PS
Already removed the word "hard" in a couple of sentences to adjust accordingly to provided information. So, now is only "fork" which can mean soft or hard.

Now OP i have a task for you. Tell us an easy way to claim all that shit...

This is not the purpose of this thread, but it is enough to search in Google for a query: "how to claim BTC forks?" and you will get multiple tutorials.

Of course, only a few of these forks are still worth something and a decent website with guides/explanations is here: https://99bitcoins.com/bitcoin-forks/

Always check everything three times and remember that claiming Bitcoins from an old wallet can be a real threat to your security.

It’s necessary to export the private keys from your old wallet using a special format. In most cases, a file will be generated that contains all your addresses and their respective private keys. Certain wallets, won’t allow you to export the private keys. In such cases, it’s necessary to enter your hardware wallet’s seed phrase into a tool (such as Ian Coleman’s BIP39 Tool), which should be run offline. Another option is to import your seed into a compatible HD wallet, such as Electrum.

https://99bitcoins.com/bitcoin-forks/

[mk4]

Now OP i have a task for you. Tell us an easy way to claim all that shit. I have never focused on forks before apart from the most popular ones (BCH, BSV, BTG), but if I could sell some of them and get some more BTC then why not. My only concern with claiming these is that some of the software might compromise the security of my BTC, although I have old addresses that technically could be used to claim some of these forks and make some free money.

Yeap, it isn't farfetched to think some of the forks could have been releasing software that could probably be used to steal funds. But seriously, the other forks besides the three you've mentioned isn't even worth selling(better yet, the effort of splitting the coins) unless you're a bitcoin whale(which is most likely not the case for like 95% of us all here on Bitcointalk).

[Darker45]

We already have more than enough Bitcoin forks and majority or perhaps all of them are not in any way making things better. But the more unfortunate thing here is that even these forks are also forking themselves. The splits are further splitting into more splits and this could actually go on and on and on. After all, every individual can actually hard fork Bitcoin.

I wonder if in every Bitcoin hard fork the Bitcoin community is also diminished a little, and then a little more with another hard fork, and so on. Although most of these hard forks are not creating even a tiny community, a few of them are successful on it. Is this chipping little by little the very foundation or the support of the original Bitcoin?

By the way, I have read the privacy coin Zcash was also a hard fork of Bitcoin?

[eaLiTy]

Always check everything three times and remember that claiming Bitcoins from an old wallet can be a real threat to your security.

Always remove the coins to another wallet before planning to use your private key to scrap all these shit coins. I had no idea about these coins in the market and the main reason for these kind of forks is because once upon a team they can say to their grand kids that they owned a crypto that forked from the main BTCitcoin and to have a feel good session during old age, other than that i have no idea why we need a million coins .

[hatshepsut93]

Why is Segwit in the first picture? It didn't create a chain split, it was a protocol upgrade for Bitcoin. You start to mix up things when you try to talk about forked coins, then switch to software forks - Bitcoin had many more hard and soft forks that didn't create new cryptocurrencies.

Also, there's a ton of coins from early days that didn't fork Bitcoins blockchain and started from their own genesis block, but had very similar code to Bitcoin, so they too can be considered Bitcoin forks in a sense that they were software forks.

[joinfree]

Woww, this information is very resourceful mate @OP. I made a review about Bitcion SV and Bitcoin Cash and i thought those were the only forked coins of bitcoin not knowing the exist numerous of them. Well i think BSV and BCH seems to be the prominent ones who claim to fulfilling Satoshi's vision by increasing the block limit size of bitcoin to increase speed of transactions across the network.

[Ryker1]

Fork? Well well, As far as I remember when the bull run started in the year 2017, there is a lot of forks that made me crazy. Fork and ERC20 Tokens were almost the same. They will fool you and will get your asset out of your wallet. Going back to the topic, --there is a lot of Bitcoin's fork right there. There are hard and soft forks the Bitcoin had and it is a lot. When the HYIP started, people tend to feel FOMO. The smart people took advantage of it and made a lot of coins. Some might be bitcoin fork, but some are also coins that made their own blockchain from scratch. Indeed, thank you OP this was very informative, all forked coins are listed that has a name Bitcoin.

[pakhitheboss]

Always new about 4 Bitcoin hard forks, never ever realised that there were 74. Most of them in the list sound like scam Bitcoin projects. This information is very enlightening. Thanks for sharing it.

[bitmover]

Well surprise surprise! There's only going to be more forks from here. I don't know why it's a big deal for you though. All of Bitcoin's forks are pretty much irrelevant anyway. And what do you expect? The code-base is open source. Forks are pretty much inevitable simply due to the fact that Bitcoin is open-source.

Pro-tip for you: just ignore the shitcoins.

That is not entirely true.

Many of those forks were worth recovering if you were fast enough, if you have at least 1 BTC (which I believe is the case of most users here)

I recovered bitcoin diamond, bitcoin core, bitcoinx , bitcoin atom,  and others which I can't remember now
There are even some airdrops like semux (which pays if you sign a message with btc balance) which are worth.

For all those I received something like 100 usd at least for each btc, maybe even more. But just when they are released, because shitcoins lose value over time...

[wwzsocki]

...I made a review about Bitcion SV and Bitcoin Cash and i thought those were the only forked coins of bitcoin not knowing the exist numerous of them...

As you can see, I haven't mentioned BSV in my article and I did it on purpose because BSV is a hard fork of BCH, not BTC!!!

As you already know, Bitcoin Cash (BCH) started as a response to the Bitcoin scaling problem and in November 2018, forked again because there was still an ideological debate in the BCH community about the scalability and final size of the block (was actually 32 MB), which led to the creation of Bitcoin Cash SV (BSV), with the block size of 128 MB.

Many people think that BCH and BSV are the most known BTC hard forks, but this is not true and BSV is a hard fork of BCH.

Why is Segwit in the first picture? It didn't create a chain split, it was a protocol upgrade for Bitcoin...

That was already mentioned and as you can see we are talking about Bitcoin Forks (hard and soft) to not confuse people too much.

Not from every fork, there was a new altcoin born and that is why I am talking about forks, which means both possibilities.

I already edited my opening post accordingly.

Bitcoin XT, Unlimited, Classic & SegWit...should be categorized as planned hard fork/network upgrade.

...will do my best to adjust all info in the opening post, but I will wait for more comments... there are links provided (overall) to sources and all of them describe these once mentioned by you, as hard forks...provide any other sources, with different/counter information and conclusions...Already removed the word "hard" in a couple of sentences to adjust accordingly...now is only "fork" which can mean soft or hard.

BSV is the only relevant chain, cause it is the refactored original protocol that is the legal and stable true BitCoin...

I hope you're kidding, and if not, it's a total BS.

[hv_]

BSV is the only relevant chain, cause it is the refactored original protocol that is the legal and stable true BitCoin.

It makes all other chains the alts.

 

[Docnaster]

There are 105 Bitcoin forks (hard and soft) in total. Of those, 74 are considered active projects, the remaining 31 are considered historic and are no longer relevant.

I think the fact that 74 of these are still considered active is the biggest surprise here. I would barely even say Bitcoin Gold is still active, I literally don't think most of these are even used anywhere other than for speculative trading... Does anybody here actually use any off the Bitcoin off-shoots outside of the top 100 by mcap? I certainly dont know anybody who does.

[stompix]

Why is Segwit in the first picture? It didn't create a chain split, it was a protocol upgrade for Bitcoin.

Yeah, I had the same feeling. Not really a coin, it didn't produce a second chain.

Now, that list might be impressive but it's not really accurate, clicked a few of them and found out this:
https://forkdrop.io/xenon

A ERC-20 token project that will eventually migrate to its own blockchain that is based on EOS. An amount of XNN was be airdropped to holders of BTC who signed a message of an Ethereum address and submitted it to the project between January and June 2018.

This is not a bitcoin and it's not a fork either.

https://forkdrop.io/semux

* Airdrop period is now over An original codebase that gives airdrops to BTC holders at the fork block that create a wallet and sign a message and submit it to the form before February 25th 2018.

Those are not forks, just silly airdrops, just Clam clones, nothing more.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

OP, this is an awesome summary and I sure as hell wasn't aware that there were this many forks.  I knew about the big ones, of course, but I haven't even heard of most of these--and I only claimed forked coins once, which turned out to be pennies worth of BCH if I remember correctly and then I swore off claiming any of that "free crypto" in the future unless there was a decent amount of it for me to get (which there usually isn't, since I don't own a lot of bitcoin, BCH, or whatever else that got forked).

Why is Segwit in the first picture? It didn't create a chain split, it was a protocol upgrade for Bitcoin.

Yeah, I had the same feeling. Not really a coin, it didn't produce a second chain.

Ditto.  Not that I understand much of the technical aspects of bitcoin, but I know enough that I recognize that Segwit isn't a fork.