Why no forks these days?

[peter0425]

When you read old threads, you will hear of many soft forks and including a few hard forks that gave birth to Bitcoin Cash , Bitcoin gold, Bitcoin SV. The last one should be BSV in 2018.
What happened differently  that there are no threats or signs of forking?

That's a very good question. There aren't many forks these days because first of all, it should have a reason. When you make a fork, what change do you make? You have to make a significant change for the betterment. Besides significant change, you have to gain the support of the people and the developers, which is the hardest job. Your fork needs to gain support, the attention of people, it needs to become popular. How possible is that? Especially when Bitcoin is the number one crypto currency with significantly higher market cap then the other altcoins? Even the 2nd one? Also, how many successful Bitcoin forks do we know? BCH? And look at critics of BCH too. BSV is a scam token ranked at 112th on coinmarketcap.

Bitcoin has been very popular these days and one might expect that this will lead to more people wanting to make a fork bitcoin but why there aren’t many? Maybe because they are focusing on just buying and trading bitcoin itself or maybe since it’s very easy to just make a coin or token nowadays from scratch that’s what they focus on.

[famososMuertos]

When you read old threads, you will hear of many soft forks and including a few hard forks that gave birth to Bitcoin Cash , Bitcoin gold, Bitcoin SV. The last one should be BSV in 2018.
What happened differently  that there are no threats or signs of forking?

The answer is simple: they haven't been required. I'm sure there have been ideas or attempts for new BIPs, but they've only been discussed and haven't reached a consensus on whether these changes are even relevant. Currently, there's an 'interesting' or 'important' change being proposed (call it what you want), which basically deals with, among other topics, the limits of OP_RETURN. So yes, there are changes... it's just that not all of them require a hard fork.

[MinoRaiola]

When you read old threads, you will hear of many soft forks and including a few hard forks that gave birth to Bitcoin Cash , Bitcoin gold, Bitcoin SV. The last one should be BSV in 2018.
What happened differently  that there are no threats or signs of forking?

There was a long story with BSV, and Craig Wright was often negative in the media. I can still remember other forks like Bitcoin Diamond and Bitcoin Silver. In the end, it became extreme unbelievable, and also a newcomer understood that something was wrong. The original Bitcoin is the best version of them all. With Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin Gold, it was profitable for many, but who wants to own a copy when they can have the original?  

[BlackBoss_]

There was a long story with BSV, and Craig Wright was often negative in the media. I can still remember other forks like Bitcoin Diamond and Bitcoin Silver. In the end, it became extreme unbelievable, and also a newcomer understood that something was wrong. The original Bitcoin is the best version of them all. With Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin Gold, it was profitable for many, but who wants to own a copy when they can have the original?  

Bitcoin Cash is a most famous Bitcoin forks but with other hundreds of forks, you can not know and remember all of those useless forks.

How Many Bitcoin Forks Are There? You will be surprised!!!
Gold, Silver, Diamond are one of many forks but they are the same in two things: their uselessness and unnecessary existence.

If you have bitcoins and hold them, you still have same bitcoins while value increases with years.
If you sell bitcoin for Bitcoin forks, you firstly lose your bitcoin but not only this, over time your portfolio value drops even to zero if you buy a Bitcoin fork which dies after all.

[m2017]

When you read old threads, you will hear of many soft forks and including a few hard forks that gave birth to Bitcoin Cash , Bitcoin gold, Bitcoin SV. The last one should be BSV in 2018.
What happened differently  that there are no threats or signs of forking?

Probably because the hype for shitcoins with the prefix bitcoin has passed. And in general, the hype of 2017 has also passed and now it is not so easy to "lure" newcomers to invest in dubious projects. Since then, the cryptoindustry has changed and the method of "cleaning out the pockets of newcomers", which was effective then, is no longer relevant. You can consider that the cryptoindustry has "cleaned up" from shitcoin projects mimicking bitcoin.

[Catenaccio]

Probably because the hype for shitcoins with the prefix bitcoin has passed. And in general, the hype of 2017 has also passed and now it is not so easy to "lure" newcomers to invest in dubious projects. Since then, the cryptoindustry has changed and the method of "cleaning out the pockets of newcomers", which was effective then, is no longer relevant. You can consider that the cryptoindustry has "cleaned up" from shitcoin projects mimicking bitcoin.

I don't think so and I believe that they will return.

People still fall to Wrapped Bitcoin tokens and take very high risk and in the last four years, there was no fork saga like Segwit in 2017. Recent years did not give scammers opportunity to create Bitcoin forks and scam people like in 2017 and 2018 but I am sure that scammers don't deny any chances to launch their scams. They don't have to spend considerable resources for launching scam projects like Bitcoin forks, so why don't give it a try when a new fork trend appears.

[Abiky]

Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin SV, and Bitcoin Gold have already proven that while copying Bitcoin’s code is easy, copying its network and the trust built around it is impossible. The market has also given its verdict.

Meanwhile, instead of splitting Bitcoin, builders have turned their focus toward Layer-2 and sidechains. Forking is no longer seen as a solution — it feels more like a distraction.

Yes. L2s and sidechains is where the money is. Besides that, many investors shifted their attention into blockchains with smart contract capabilities. So hard forks would be very unpopular. At least, for now. Back in the day, forks were a way for developers and whales to get "free money" with their existing holdings. Exchanges noticed their schemes, and went as far as being "picky" when listing forks within their platforms.

With forks having little support from exchanges, they ultimately faded away into oblivion. Only Bitcoin Cash is around, but it's still widely unpopular. I wouldn't worry about a new fork for a very long time.

[OcTradism]

Yes. L2s and sidechains is where the money is. Besides that, many investors shifted their attention into blockchains with smart contract capabilities. So hard forks would be very unpopular. At least, for now. Back in the day, forks were a way for developers and whales to get "free money" with their existing holdings. Exchanges noticed their schemes, and went as far as being "picky" when listing forks within their platforms.

Smart contracts are so smart to serve developers and governments as they can use smart contracts for minting massive new tokens and dump those mint-from-thin-air with smart contract tool on the market. Smart contracts can also help governments to seize your altcoins and tokens, for example stable coins, even they are in your non custodial wallets.

Are they smart for users?
My opinion and also answer, No.

PSA: Most Stablecoins Can Be Frozen, Even in Your Own Wallets.
Stablecoins and Blacklists.

[DeathAngel]

It’s a good thing that there haven’t been any forks in a long time. If you know your history, they were the result of long, drawn out civil wars over block size. You might be in luck though, there is currently big splits between people over spam filters on the blockchain. Bitcoin Core vs Bitcoin Knots, I fear there will be another fork.

[hd49728]

It’s a good thing that there haven’t been any forks in a long time. If you know your history, they were the result of long, drawn out civil wars over block size. You might be in luck though, there is currently big splits between people over spam filters on the blockchain. Bitcoin Core vs Bitcoin Knots, I fear there will be another fork.

I don't know it is actually good as scammers tried another way with their exploitation on Taproot with Ordinals and Runes Protocol. These shit tokens on BRC20 actually attracted many unknownledgeable, inexperienced but over greedy people who spent a lot of money for ORDI and RUNEs as well as other shit tokens with hope of x100, x1000. Eventually they lost big with those shit and useless tokens on BRC20.

Scammers won't stop and they can move around to be adaptive with newest trend technically for launching new scam projects with highest chance of successful scams. They no longer create Bitcoin forks as they see this trend gone and they can not succeed with new forks.

[Synchronice]

Bitcoin has been very popular these days and one might expect that this will lead to more people wanting to make a fork bitcoin but why there aren’t many? Maybe because they are focusing on just buying and trading bitcoin itself or maybe since it’s very easy to just make a coin or token nowadays from scratch that’s what they focus on.

There should be a point when you create something. It's easy to create a new token from scratch and it has been easier since the day Bitcoin was created to create a new token because you have an open-source code of Bitcoin, just copy/paste it and edit, that's all, that's what LTC and some other coins are.
It's easy to create a Bitcoin fork but seriously, what's the point? You can't get the majority of miners to follow your fork, so create a fork and be alone, what's point of this? That's why people aren't creating a fork, it's completely pointless unless you have billions of dollars, connections and power. Probably Elon Musk can create a fork and get a solid fanbase but there are also many other things on the table, including the reputation among developers.

[Rustam Meraj]

There should be a point when you create something. It's easy to create a new token from scratch and it has been easier since the day Bitcoin was created to create a new token because you have an open-source code of Bitcoin, just copy/paste it and edit, that's all, that's what LTC and some other coins are.
It's easy to create a Bitcoin fork but seriously, what's the point? You can't get the majority of miners to follow your fork, so create a fork and be alone, what's point of this? That's why people aren't creating a fork, it's completely pointless unless you have billions of dollars, connections and power. Probably Elon Musk can create a fork and get a solid fanbase but there are also many other things on the table, including the reputation among developers.

Yes it is easy to copy and change Bitcoin open source code to make new coin but it is very difficult to create successful fork. And Litecoin was made by changing Bitcoin code but it is not true fork like Bitcoin Cash which split from main network. Main reason most forks fail is that they can not get support of miners and developers and users. As you correctly pointed out successful fork requires huge amount of power and money and influence. This shows that true value of cryptocurrency comes from community that supports it not just from code itself.

[Abiky]

Smart contracts are so smart to serve developers and governments as they can use smart contracts for minting massive new tokens and dump those mint-from-thin-air with smart contract tool on the market. Smart contracts can also help governments to seize your altcoins and tokens, for example stable coins, even they are in your non custodial wallets.

Are they smart for users?
My opinion and also answer, No.

PSA: Most Stablecoins Can Be Frozen, Even in Your Own Wallets.
Stablecoins and Blacklists.

That depends on the smart contract code itself. If developers implement a "freeze" or "blacklist" function, it will be easy to censor addresses on the Blockchain. Such is the case with centralized stablecoins such as Tether (USDT) and USD Coin (USDC). Truly-decentralized stablecoins have no such feature (eg: DAI, USDJ). Not even ordinary tokens living across smart contract platforms. I'd say smart contract platforms are "smart" because they enable automated transactions and unlock the world of "decentralized finance" without the need for middleman. At least, that's how they're supposed to work. But again, developers can code smart contracts with censorship in mind. It becomes worse when the underlying blockchain platform is centralized (like Solana or Binance Smart Chain).

At least, it's possible to "fork" independent blockchain networks with ease. If the majority doesn't agree on something, they can "fork" away and move on. But I wouldn't say the same about tokens living on smart contract chains. I'd be surprised if another Bitcoin or Ethereum fork emerges. With how unpredictable crypto land is, anything's possible.

[davis196]

When you read old threads, you will hear of many soft forks and including a few hard forks that gave birth to Bitcoin Cash , Bitcoin gold, Bitcoin SV. The last one should be BSV in 2018.
What happened differently  that there are no threats or signs of forking?

All the forked Bitcoin versions were popular back in the day mostly due to the scaling debate. Many Bitcoiners were convinced that Bitcoin should be improved(by increasing block size or whatever) and a better version of Bitcoin should be created. This didn't work and all forked Bitcoin versions eventually failed to gain popularity(and they had their own flaws). Most forked BTC creators were trying to make quick money and some of them became rich. I also believe that most of the forked Bitcoin fans and developers moved into other "get-rich-quick" schemes like NFTs, De-Fi, memecoins, etc. Nowadays nobody in the BTC community would care about a new hardforked Bitcoin "insert random word here" shitcoin.

[henry_of_skalitz]

Yes it is easy to copy and change Bitcoin open source code to make new coin but it is very difficult to create successful fork. And Litecoin was made by changing Bitcoin code but it is not true fork like Bitcoin Cash which split from main network. Main reason most forks fail is that they can not get support of miners and developers and users. As you correctly pointed out successful fork requires huge amount of power and money and influence. This shows that true value of cryptocurrency comes from community that supports it not just from code itself.

The easiest argument would be what such a fork has that BTC wouldn't?

[irhact]

Probably because the hype for shitcoins with the prefix bitcoin has passed. And in general, the hype of 2017 has also passed and now it is not so easy to "lure" newcomers to invest in dubious projects. Since then, the cryptoindustry has changed and the method of "cleaning out the pockets of newcomers", which was effective then, is no longer relevant. You can consider that the cryptoindustry has "cleaned up" from shitcoin projects mimicking bitcoin.

Yes this is very true, what we have now are shitcoin mimicking other shitcoins. After any of them gets some attention, you'll begin to see others building something similar and they don't last that long anymore. The moment taping for airdrops gained some attention, we saw how quick developers and scammers were fast to start creating something similar to benefits from the hype of the moment. Realistically, the market is getting more smarter and people aren't falling for scams that much as they used to do before therefore the forks aren't going to get much attention and that's why they aren't happening as they used to do. All the forks that happened, many of them don't have any market shares again.

[henry_of_skalitz]

Probably because the hype for shitcoins with the prefix bitcoin has passed. And in general, the hype of 2017 has also passed and now it is not so easy to "lure" newcomers to invest in dubious projects. Since then, the cryptoindustry has changed and the method of "cleaning out the pockets of newcomers", which was effective then, is no longer relevant. You can consider that the cryptoindustry has "cleaned up" from shitcoin projects mimicking bitcoin.

Yes this is very true, what we have now are shitcoin mimicking other shitcoins. After any of them gets some attention, you'll begin to see others building something similar and they don't last that long anymore. The moment taping for airdrops gained some attention, we saw how quick developers and scammers were fast to start creating something similar to benefits from the hype of the moment. Realistically, the market is getting more smarter and people aren't falling for scams that much as they used to do before therefore the forks aren't going to get much attention and that's why they aren't happening as they used to do. All the forks that happened, many of them don't have any market shares again.

Nowadays, shitcoins are everywhere, far and wide, even those that claim they are not, whereas in fact, they only search for profit.

I am glad we have a market where we can see those that are there from the start, such as BTC, to not fail to see what to follow and learn about..