Fork
A divergence in a blockchain’s history. A hard fork that is not adopted by the whole network produces two separate chains sharing the same history up to the split (e.g., Bitcoin Cash from Bitcoin in 2017). Keys valid before the split control the corresponding balances on both chains, which allows activity to be linked across the two networks.
Related
Essays
- The Strings Stay Public (Why Tracing Is Not Enough)
“The most careful criminals skip the testnet and fork mainnet locally, which leaves nothing to find.”