Un Fork It's when a blockchain It is divided into two different paths, as if you came to an intersection and each group decided to follow their own route. Sometimes they reconcile, but other times each one goes on with their own version of the story, creating two different cryptocurrencies or two ways to operate.

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Un fork (bifurcation) It is an event that occurs when modify the protocol of a blockchain, which generates a divergence in block history and in the rules that nodes follow to validate new transactions. This bifurcation can be temporary or permanent, and is mainly classified into two types:

• Soft fork: it's an update backward compatible, where blocks created under the new rules are also valid for nodes that have not yet updated. It doesn't require the entire network to be updated simultaneously, but to function properly in the long term, it needs a significant majority of miners or validators to adopt the new rules.
• Hard fork: it's an update Not compatible with the previous version. It creates a permanent break in the network, where part of the nodes continue with the old protocol and another adopts the new one. This can result in two independent chains, as was the case with Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash or with Ethereum and Ethereum Classic. In these cases, both chains share the history before the fork, but they follow different trajectories from the separation block.

Forks can be planned (to introduce improvements, correct errors, adjust the economic system or implement new functionalities) or unplanned (due to disagreements in the community, technical errors or attacks). They are also used as a mechanism for governance and evolution in decentralized networks, although their management can generate risks of community fragmentation, duplication of assets and compatibility conflicts.

From a technical and economic perspective, forks are essential for the development and adaptation of blockchain systems, but they require coordination, consensus and transparent communication to avoid negative consequences.

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