Quote from: huntingbtc5 on May 24, 2018, 03:42:32 PM

Hey,
As a newby i want to know more about bitcoin and blockchain technology. Can you guys help me understand Soft and Hard fork of cryptocurrency.
Thank you

Soft Fork : When anyone (anycoin) release an update on the blockchain, they can either release the update in such a way that the new version of software is completely backward compatible with the old version i.e. the old version would be able to interact with the new version (the people who have the older version and not upgraded yet can interact with the people having new version). The new version has some kind of extra features that are only available in the new version, if the fork is soft fork then those new feature shouldnot prohibit this backward compatibility.

Suppose I have not upgraded and i am using the blockchain with it's older version (fork) but you have upgraded and using the latest version of blockchain then in this case, i am able to communicate with you and also with the person who havenot upgraded yet. And you will also be able to communicate both persons.

but but i will not be able to use some extra features of the blockchain which are added after the updation so if i want to use those features then i need to update to the latest blockchain.

2. Hard Fork : It is an upgrade that is not compatible with the old version of software so if the block size in the blockchain is increased, that would be a hard fork because the new version of software that works with increased block size wouldnot be able to communicate with the old version of the software and vice-versa.

Those two different versions would be running on two completely different blockchains, these blockchains would look identically to point where the hard fork happens so they would agree on everything. Actually , they become two separate coins (blockchains) so if you are using old version sofware and people who have upgraded to the new version cannot communicate or send coins from old to new version so the new version becomes most relevant and majority of people switch to the new version. This fork splits the blockchain.

Blockchain developers usually tell everyone that from in about a week or a month or sometime we're going to have a hard fork, you can already now download new version however it will function exactly as the old one until that point and from that point in the future is going to function as the new version and that is to give time to people to upgrade and then the hard fork really happens. If the people dont upgrade, they will be on the old blockchain that is completely separated from the new blockchain.