Blockchain & Infrastructure
Hard Fork
A backward-incompatible blockchain upgrade that permanently splits the chain if nodes don't upgrade.
A hard fork is a protocol change that is incompatible with previous versions — nodes that don't upgrade will reject blocks produced under the new rules, potentially causing a permanent chain split. Famous hard forks include Bitcoin/Bitcoin Cash (2017) and Ethereum/Ethereum Classic (2016). Planned hard forks with community consensus are a routine upgrade mechanism; contentious hard forks result in competing networks.
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