History of Bitcoin Forks: Important Versions of Bitcoin

Bitcoin (BTC) is the most popular cryptocurrency on the planet, but it is not without its limitations. Over the years, many developers have tried to improve Bitcoin by creating forks. Some forks have failed, while others have left a deep mark on the cryptocurrency industry.

What is a Hard Fork

A hard fork is when a blockchain splits into two separate branches. One branch continues to operate as before, while the other branch changes some of the rules, creating a completely new network. These forks often occur when there is a debate within the community about the direction of the project.

Why Does Bitcoin Have Many Forks

Bitcoin has gone through many forks due to:

- Proof of Work (PoW): PoW is energy-intensive and has the risk of centralization.

- Transaction speed: Bitcoin only processes about 7 transactions per second due to the 1MB block size limit.

Transaction fees: Small block sizes lead to high transaction fees.

Significant Bitcoin forks

Bitcoin XT (2015)
Bitcoin XT was one of the first forks, increasing the block size from 1MB to 8MB. However, due to being too ambitious at the time, Bitcoin XT quickly declined.

Bitcoin Classic (2016)
Bitcoin Classic followed XT, but with a more cautious approach, increasing the block size to 2MB. Despite initial support, it did not attract enough participation to sustain itself.

Bitcoin Unlimited (2017)
Bitcoin Unlimited allowed miners to choose any block size. However, with the majority of miners still choosing 1MB blocks, the project did not achieve the expected success. The development team then shifted to Bitcoin Cash.

Bitcoin Cash (BCH) (2017)
Bitcoin Cash is one of the most successful forks of Bitcoin. It increased the block size to 32MB and used a more flexible difficulty adjustment algorithm. Although it cannot compete with Bitcoin in terms of popularity, BCH still has its own community.

Bitcoin Gold (BTG) (2017)
Bitcoin Gold changed the PoW algorithm to make mining easier with GPUs instead of expensive ASIC systems. However, BTG was attacked 51% multiple times, reducing investor confidence.

Bitcoin SV (BSV) (2018)
Bitcoin SV (Satoshi's Vision) is a fork of Bitcoin Cash, aiming to realize Satoshi Nakamoto's vision. It allows for block sizes up to 2GB and supports decentralized applications (DApps). However, the controversy surrounding founder Craig Wright has affected the development of BSV.