Fork

A fork is when a blockchain's history or its rules diverge, leaving two possible versions of the truth. Temporary forks happen naturally: two miners publish valid blocks at almost the same moment, the network briefly disagrees, and within a block or two one branch is discarded. Deliberate forks are software changes. A soft fork tightens the rules so that nodes running older software still accept new blocks, while a hard fork changes or loosens them and requires everyone to upgrade. If part of the community refuses to upgrade, a hard fork can turn into a permanent chain split with two separate coins. Be sceptical of sites promising forked coins — anything that asks for a seed phrase to claim them is a scam.