How Does a Hard Fork Differ from a Soft Fork in Terms of Network Consensus? ▴ Learn

How Does a Hard Fork Differ from a Soft Fork in Terms of Network Consensus?

A hard fork is a non-backward-compatible protocol upgrade, meaning nodes that do not upgrade will see the new blocks as invalid, leading to a permanent chain split. A soft fork is backward-compatible; non-upgraded nodes still see the new blocks as valid, though they cannot enforce the new rules, maintaining a single chain.

Hard forks require near-unanimous consensus for a smooth transition.

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