Hi all,

I was wondering about the following scenario:

When a node receives two valid blocks, a fork occurs. Then, when a next block is found and send to that node, the longest chain will be considered as valid. This is the process called forking.

First question, at what rate does a fork occur in Bitcoin? With thousands of nodes mining, it seems that a fork must occur on a regular basis – are there any stats on how often a fork happens?

Second, knowing that Bitcoin uses a P2P network, assume there's a single connection that connects two parts of the network (a single point of failure in a P2P network). That connection fails for 24 hours, and the two separate networks continue mining. Both are working on their own version of the blockchain. Then, a smart network engineer fixes the cable and the connection is restored. Effectively, there are two versions of the blockchain and both are valid (for each part of the network). New blocks from network A are rejected by B (and vice versa), because the longest chain rule is applied. Instead of a 'fork', we have 'knife', cutting the network in half.

Second question, how does Bitcoin deal with such an issue (though theoretically, considering it's an P2P network)?

Cheers,
Fevir