What differences betwen hard fork and change algorithma

halo,

any one can explain the difference hard fork and change algoritma?
i ask this because, i read that hard fork usualy made a new coin, this case of bch hard fork made new a bch abc and bch sv, or bitcoin that made born a bch btg, btcp, … etc
but we know… the btg had hard fork but not born the new coin…just change algo from equihash to equihashbtg,
i still didn’t understand about this. (my basicly not computer programing).
in my mind…if the asic had invent 144.5, what we had to do? hard fork and born new btg?( i think its not good because the name of “btg” is very good ) or change algo?(my opinion its the best idea to change algo).

thanks for any one can explain to me

I know it’s confusing for a lot of people who don’t have a background in software development or computer science. It helps to have a little bit of background.

Hard forks do not always create a new coin, but every time there’s a hard fork there’s a possibility of a new coin. In reality, the majority of hard forks do not create a new coin. The public generally only hears about hard forks which make a new coin, though, so they feel it’s very common when it’s not - and a lot of people fear any hard forks because they are afraid of their favorite coin splitting into two different coins.

This post may help you understand:

I think the confusion largely comes from the fact that in coding and computer science we use the words “fork” and “hard fork” in particular ways which are not how the general public uses them.

A “fork” just means a copy of something with something different. It’s simply a computer science term for making a copy with your own changes.That’s all!

If you like a song, but you change a few words to make your own personal version, you have “forked” the song. If many people make their own version of a song, and they all post the song online, it’s possible to draw a sort of “family tree” of the different versions of the song. You can find the original song which a lot of people copied, and you can find that some people made their versions based on someone else’s copy instead of the original. It will look like a person’s family tree, or like a biological tree of different species. On those trees, every intersection is just a “fork.” That’s where the term comes from - it means nothing more.

So a fork is just a copy with some changes. What’s a hard fork?

A hard fork is a change which requires everyone to use the new version. For example, BTG version 15.0 used the original version of Equihash (200,9), and the newer BTG version 15.1 used Equihash (144,5). This means that if you use one version and I use the other version, you and I are not compatible. Yours can work, and mine can work, but we cannot share blocks any longer. Both versions can potentially continue to work and grow blocks, but they can never be the same chain any more. So there is the possibility for a split and two different coins, but that only happens if different people insist on running both versions.

But if people do not insist on running both versions - if everyone agrees on the new version and nobody runs the old version, then there is no split, and no new coin! This is the key - if everyone in the coin community agrees that the new version is better and appropriate, and everyone runs it and mines it, and nobody mines the old version - then there is no split and no new coin. It’s simply an upgrade. That’s why we’ve called our new code this summer a “successful hardfork upgrade.”

I hope this helps.

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thanks u , its helping me to understand, very good explanations

o ya, i read in internet, when the hard fork done,…example… bitcoin fork and the new is bch…its said that anyone have/hold btc will be get bch too, whats meaning?
i think when btc hardfork and born btg…any one have/hold btc before hardwork get btg too?
in my imagine…btc coin had mined 17m, so in another word it will get 17m btg too if 1 btc=1btg and least 4m remaining…when we look the values 1 btc get 219 btg (this time 27nov2018)… its can be said the btg had mined all, but we still mine today. is the btg begin from 1 btg when first hardfork from btc?
how many coin btg had mined? and how many/suply btg to mine?

i m sory if i had many question @mentalnomad, like a litlle boy ask his father :smiley:

Let’s say you had 10 bitcoin you put in a BTC wallet in June of 2017. That balance - 10 coins - is visible on the blockchain, which grows by another block every 10 minutes or so, like a ledger adding another page every 10 minutes. Let’s assume you never spent those coins.

In August 2017, there was a hardfork intended to create a new coin in a live split of BTC, which we now call Bitcoin Cash. This new chain was identical to the Bitcoin chain up until August 1st, 2017, but it was not compatible with the Bitcoin chain, so the chain grew as a new branch of the “family tree.” So BCH was a new coin, but had the same historical ledger as Bitcoin before August 1st.

That BTC wallet address with 10 coins has a corresponding BCH wallet address, and because they have the same history from June, the Bitcoin blockchain says you have 10 coins and the Bitcoin Cash blockchain says you have 10 coins. This is not because more coins were mined - it’s because there are now two different ledger books, and they both say you have 10 in a wallet address that you put there in June.

Then, on October 25th, 2017, Bitcoin Gold copied (forked) the entire Bitcoin blockchain history as the basis for the new coin, BTG (which was launched on November 12.) So, on November 12, a new chain began to grow, with a new coin, but which contained the full history of BTC prior to October 25. That means that in the BTG chain, you have 10 coins which were put in that wallet in June.

At that point, you had 10 BTC, and 10 BCH, and 10 BTG. None of this was because of new coins being mined - all three chains have roughly 17,000,000 coins in existence today. The reason it’s 10 coins of each is simply because they have a shared history - a history in which you had 10 coins before the forks. At the time of the split, 1 coin BTC led to 1 coin of BCH, and at the time of the Bitcoin Gold fork, 1 coin BTC led to 1 coin BTG.

Current prices for the coins are an entirely separate matter. You can say that 1 BTC is worth as much as 219 BTG, but that’s not to say that 1 BTC is the same thing as 219 BTG - you’re not creating BTG coins from BTC coins, they simply have that price ratio. It’s a price ratio, not a coin ratio.

Think of this: salt costs about $0.008 per ounce. Gold (the metal) costs about $1223.45 per ounce.

So we can say that one pound of gold = 2,446,900 pounds of salt, in terms of price… but that doesn’t mean that having one pound of gold is the same thing as having 2.5 million pounds of salt! We’re just talking about a price ratio.

ok thank u,
its nice explanations.

when the btg hardfork from 200.9 to 144.5, whats hapen with coin (200.9)? because it was diferent chain with 144.5. i mean, how to sincronous coin 200.9 to 144.5?

There are no “old coins” on 200,9 because that chain was abandoned by everyone.

The whole Community agreed to move to the new algorithm, and pretty much nobody stayed on the old code with the old algo (200,9).

All pools, miners, exchanges, and explorers moved to the new code and, starting at block 536,200, have used the new algorithm. As a group, we have mined 21,315 blocks since then, taking us to 55,7514.

If I recall correctly, a couple of stray miners accidentally kept mining on the old code and mined one or two blocks, and the “old code” version stopped dead at around block 536,202. I can’t easily check if that’s still the case, because there are no Explorers which look for the old dead chain; they all look at the current chain.

I haven’t heard of any exchange listing the “old” version as a different coin (BTG Classic?), and even if someone did list it as a coin, you can’t send a coin to an exchange because the blockchain is dead… and if it were on an exchange, it would probably have a value of $0.00, because who wants to pay for a coin on a dead chain?

It worked exactly like the “Normal” process I described at the end of this post:

I wrote that back on June 4, a month before our Hardfork Upgrade on July 3, but that’s exactly when ended up happening in July.