Most Common Term Used In Crypto World

 We often get notified on our smartphones and laptops for system updates. In every software, it is necessary to fix its deficiency and improve performance. Such updates in the crypto era are called, ‘forks’.

Cryptocurrencies are decentralized and participants (or nodes) are expected to follow a set of rules and regulations to work in the same structure. These rules are known as ‘protocol’. 

Currently, there are two types of forks present in the crypto world - soft fork and hard fork. Let's get into the definition of what is soft fork. It is a substitute in the cryptocurrency protocol but is backward-compatible. Backward compatibility is the property of a system that is used with the older piece of hardware or software without special conversion and variation. The nodes, even when not updated, will be able to proceed with transactions and send new blocks to the blockchain until and unless they disrupt the new protocol rules. This is what soft forks mean in simpler words. The soft fork also impacts how the protocol works. It has a special feature to encourage the older nodes to update themselves whenever a new protocol is acknowledged. 

To know more about what a soft fork is, visit the Cryptoknowmics website and get every little detail about the crypto industry.