Soft Fork

BlockworksJun 25, 2019 ⋅ 1 min read

Written by Max Hinchman

Introduction

A soft fork is a software modification to a blockchain that does not require mandatory update by all of the nodes in the network. Soft forks allow nodes operating on the older version to continue to participate in the network. In soft forks, the network does not require all nodes to update in order to retain consensus.

Nodes running the older version of the software will still be able to participate in the network. However, the nodes running the newer version of the software will not accept blocks by the older version. If a majority of the nodes upgrade to the software then the software update will eventually be accepted by all nodes in the network.

An example of a soft fork is Bitcoin’s Pay to Script Hash soft fork. The soft fork implemented multi-signature addresses on the bitcoin blockchain. A soft fork allowed for much smoother adoption process rather than dictating all nodes to update at a certain time as is the case with a hard fork.

Suggested Reading

Hard Fork vs Soft Fork in Coindesk

The differences between a hard fork, a soft fork, and a chain split, and what they mean for the future of bitcoin by John Light

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Outline
  • Introduction
  • Suggested Reading