What The Heck Is An Ethereum Fork?

When talking about cryptocurrency, a lot of confusing terms can crop up. One of these is a fork, which is a rare occurrence that can bring about some significant changes. Sometimes they’re intentional, other times they aren’t, and they can differ between hard and soft forks.

To better understand what this all means, particularly regarding Ethereum (ETH), here’s a brief guide.

Soft And Hard Forks 

First off, it’s good to understand the difference between soft and hard forks. The former are less influential because they don’t alter the structure of the crypto protocol. Developers might use them to make cosmetic changes or perform maintenance, but other than that, they’re not a big deal.

Hard forks, on the other hand, change a cryptocurrency completely. When one is implemented, the previous protocol becomes invalid. This can result in the development of two separate currencies – the older version and the newer one. There have already been several instances of this across various cryptocurrencies, the most successful of these happening with Bitcoin.

Most of the time, hard forks aren’t prepared for and occur out of necessity. However, that hasn’t always been the case with Ethereum.

Ethereum Classic

The first of Ethereum’s hard forks was also its most controversial. It came about in response to hacking and was implemented quickly. However, while some were happy about the developers taking action to deal with this, others felt it went against the purpose of decentralization.

Those in the latter camp stuck with the original version of the currency, believing that supporting the developer’s actions would have devastating consequences in the future. This currency became known as Ethereum Classic.

Ether Zero

Ether Zero was the next hard fork that came along, and it didn’t cause nearly the same amount of backlash as its predecessor. Whereas the first hard fork was a response to a sudden problem, the second one was implemented to try and improve the cryptocurrency. The developers wanted to better transaction rate speeds while also eliminating fees.

Metropolis

The current Ethereum hard fork is Metropolis, which is all about improving the cryptocurrency’s privacy and moving it from a proof of work protocol to a proof of stake one. Consisting of three stages, this fork can potentially revolutionize Ethereum while also eliminating mining from the equation. Understandably, that has its supporters and its detractors.

While the loss of Ethereum mining would be a significant change, this obviously isn’t the only way a person can get their hands on ETH. Anyone with the money to spare can visit a website like Paxful and purchase Ethereum through a wide variety of methods. It’s a more straightforward way of getting involved with the cryptocurrency that takes some of the concern out of these upcoming changes.

With blockchain technology constantly improving and developers seeking new ways to enhance currencies, it’s only natural for forks to occur. Some are a big deal, others fly under the radar, but if there’s one thing we can guarantee, it’s that there will undoubtedly be more forks in Ethereum’s future.