A hard fork is a common activity in the blockchain. Some hard forks that occurred birthed popular cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin Classic are hard forks of Bitcoin. It is common to see some people trying to fork Bitcoin or the other Proof of Work network, Ethereum, to create a new cryptocurrency. Ethereum underwent a hard fork years ago when the system was attacked.
A hard fork may occur for different reasons, like an upgrade to the existing currency. It could be to move a Proof of Work network to the more efficient Proof of Stake consensus mechanism, which removes the need for mining. Sometimes, it could be done to incorporate features like smart contracts technology. An example is the Alonzo hard fork that was done in Cardano. Another reason could be to improve the functioning of the chain and cut down on the transaction fees that users pay. The reasons vary.
When a split happens, a new copy of existing crypto is created. Bitcoin has undergone multiple forks in the past to birth a new coin. Some examples that occurred in 2017 are Super Bitcoin, Bitcoin Platinum, Bitcoin Cash Plus, Bitcoin Silver, Bitcoin Uranium, and Bitcoin Gold.
Examples of Coins That Were Created With Bitcoin Hard Forks
When a community has varying philosophies of the operations of Bitcoin, they create a team to organize a split that will create their version of the coin. Once their altcoins are birthed, they announce an ICO, create a website, and try to list them on exchanges.
Usually, the new coin that was created from the split is related to the existing cryptocurrency. They could have a similar protocol, use cases, consensus mechanism, and much more.
Bitcoin Cash (BCH)
It is the faster version of Bitcoin, with larger blocks.
Super Bitcoin and BitcoinX
They incorporate smart contracts which are not available in Bitcoin. Its blocks resemble that of BTC, but it bears some similarities with Ethereum in the aspect of smart contracts.
Bitcoin Platinum and Bitcoin Cash Plus
These tokens are designed to mimic BCH.
Bitcoin Private
This crypto was made to act as the more private version of the Bitcoin Gold.
At the moment, there is a myriad of versions that were created from Bitcoin or the hard-forked version of the BTC.
Will there be upcoming crypto hard forks?
Sometimes, the chatter of a split may leak into the community, and in the end, it turns out to be a rumour. It is important to note that these upcoming crypto forks may occur or not.
• Ethereum Fork
Before Ethereum can move from Proof of Work to Proof of Stake, a hard fork will be done.
• Bitcoin Cash Node
This potential coin will come from BCH.
• YCash
Bitcoin and Ethereum are not the only tokens that may go through forks in the future. It is believed that YCash will be created from ZEC.
• Wisp Project
This token will be created from XSPEC.
Conclusion
There is hardly any token that was created via hard fork that has managed to overshadow the existing coin. Many coins were made from BTC and Ether, yet none of them can give the existing coins a run for their money. In the future, more hard forks will occur to add new upgrades.