Does anyone remember when Bitcoin was hard forked?

[kittycatbtc]

I still dont really understand what a fork is 

[yogi]

I still dont really understand what a fork is 

'Hard Fork'
When there are a sufficient number of bitcoin clients on the network that disagree on the rules about how blocks are created and recorded in the blockchain. It leads to a split in the chain, one set of bitcoin clients follow one branch and another set follows the other. To fix hard forks some action must be taken by us.

[BitcoinMillionaire]

Woah, Bitcoin was hard-forked? NO WAY! That killy a crypto! Why would anyone do this? What are we paying the developers for???

[phillipsjk]

I found the Cryptocoinnews article about this. The vericoin developers essentially pushed a checkpoint that did not include the transaction.

This should not be able to happen with Bitcoin unless more than 50% of the hash-power is controlled by one entity. When Bitcoin developers push checkpoints, they are generally thousands of blocks deep.

Edit: looks like vericoin makes "minting" to cold wallets impossible:

Network stake-dependent interest is the mechanism in which the amount of coins minted during the proof-of-stake phase occurs. Instead of a flat 1% interest, Vericoin's interest rate can range from 0% to just under 3%. The practical range of interest is between 1.5-2.5%. Based upon the number of coins being staked (occurs when the wallet is open and unlocked), the interest rate varies. The more coins staked, the higher the interest rate. This provides incentive for keeping the client open and unlocked, further securing the network. The additional security ensures that the blockchain is not compromised and forked. In addition, it provides incentive for owners of the coin to use it as a savings vehicle as it earns interest at a more reasonable rate and more representative of a real economy.

-http://www.vericoin.info/interest.html
(Bold, Emphasis mine)

"Cold storage" is actually actively discouraged.

[Beliathon]

Not all hard fork necessarily heal, there are currently 3 full-time developers working on Bitcoin, if this monetary system would be developed by say, Oracle, with +200 programmers working on it fulltime we wouldn't have that risk.

Only 3 full-time developers for the future of money. This fact is an indication of just how early in this game we are...

[franky1]

Woah, Bitcoin was hard-forked? NO WAY! That killy a crypto! Why would anyone do this? What are we paying the developers for???

you pay the developers?

seems you must be the only paying member of the bitcoin foundation left

i do love the over use of the term "we" where in most cases the sentance where the 'we' is used doesnt include the person saying it, in reality

[CasinoBit]

Not all hard fork necessarily heal, there are currently 3 full-time developers working on Bitcoin, if this monetary system would be developed by say, Oracle, with +200 programmers working on it fulltime we wouldn't have that risk.

Only 3 full-time developers for the future of money. This fact is an indication of just how early in this game we are...

No, it's an indication of how a 8 billion market is being operated by people lacking basic business skills.

[Swordsoffreedom]

I saw that Vericoin was hard forked in response to a successful attack on Mintpal's system and I remember seeing somewhere that Bitcoin was hard forked once. I'm too new to Bitcoin to remember the circumstances, so could someone fill me in on the details?

The first hard fork was way to early for me to remember it but from the second hard fork I remember that it was a new client that was not compatible to the old one, so people were told to revert or stay on the older Bitcoin client and that became the main chain.

There were a few double spends but it went fairly smoothly considering the problems that occurred there.

[Stephen Gornick]

fill me in on the details?

The March 11, 2013 hardfork.

 - http://bitcoin.org/chainfork.html
 - http://bitcoinmoney.com/post/47048259653
 - http://endthelie.com/2013/03/13/financial-crisis-revealed-and-resolved-in-the-world-of-bitcoin

[Bit_Happy]

Not all hard fork necessarily heal, there are currently 3 full-time developers working on Bitcoin, if this monetary system would be developed by say, Oracle, with +200 programmers working on it fulltime we wouldn't have that risk.

Only 3 full-time developers for the future of money. This fact is an indication of just how early in this game we are...

No, it's an indication of how a 8 billion market is being operated by people lacking basic business skills.

No, you make it sound like a central "company" is responsible for Bitcoin, and that is not the case.
Sadly, the Bitcoin Foundation is paying the devs, are those the "people lacking basic business skills" who you are referring to?

[Rampion]

I perfectly recall the March 2013 hard fork.

Not only I didn't panic, I even went "all in" with all the money I had previously planned to invest gradually in Bitcoin... And I did thank the panickers by heart.