Fork

A fork in Bitcoin is an event where the blockchain diverges into two separate paths, typically due to differences in software rules or consensus among nodes. Forks can be soft forks, which are backward-compatible changes that tighten or modify rules without splitting the network, or hard forks, which introduce incompatible changes that create a new blockchain if some nodes do not upgrade. Forks can occur for protocol upgrades, feature additions, or community disagreements, and they play a key role in the evolution and governance of the Bitcoin network.