There have been several important hard forks in the history of Bitcoin. Here is the history of Bitcoin’s hard forks:
Bitcoin Cash: Bitcoin Cash was the first hard fork of Bitcoin, occurring on August 1, 2017. The fork was due to a dispute over Bitcoin’s block size limit. Bitcoin Cash increased the block size limit to 8MB to increase transaction capacity and fast confirmations. Users who held Bitcoin received a corresponding amount of Bitcoin Cash at the time of the fork.
Bitcoin Gold: Bitcoin Gold is the second hard fork of Bitcoin, which occurred on October 24, 2017. This fork is to achieve decentralized mining of Bitcoin and resist the mining monopoly controlled by dedicated hardware (ASIC) by adopting a new mining algorithm (Equihash). Users holding Bitcoin received a corresponding amount of Bitcoin Gold upon the fork.
Bitcoin Diamond: Bitcoin Diamond is the third hard fork of Bitcoin, which occurred on November 24, 2017. This fork aims to improve Bitcoin’s privacy and transaction speed. Bitcoin Diamond adopts larger block size limits and faster block generation times. Users holding Bitcoin received a corresponding number of Bitcoin Diamonds at the time of the fork.
Bitcoin SV: Bitcoin SV is the fourth hard fork of Bitcoin, which occurred on November 15, 2018. The fork was due to a dispute over the governance and protocol rules within Bitcoin Cash. Supporters of Bitcoin SV believe that Bitcoin Cash strays from Bitcoin's original vision and attempt to re-achieve Bitcoin's goals by restoring the original protocol and increasing the block size limit.
These hard fork events illustrate the different opinions and controversies that exist within the Bitcoin community. Each fork resulted in a new blockchain and independent cryptocurrency. Although these forked currencies share the same historical transaction records with Bitcoin after the fork occurs, they have different characteristics and development directions in technology and governance.
