Introduction to blockchain | What is a forked coin, what is an airdrop coin, what is the difference?

On March 1, Ethereum conducted a hard fork - Constantinople/Saint Petersburg upgrade. Before that, you may have seen some industry insiders speculating whether this upgrade of Ethereum would eventually fork into two chains and generate forked coins.

So, what is a forked coin? Industry media often release news about certain projects that will conduct airdrops, reminding users that they can go and claim the airdropped coins. What is the difference between airdropped coins and forked coins?

Today, Plain Language Blockchain will take you to learn about forked coins and airdrop coins .

01What is a forked coin?

Forked coins, as the name suggests, are coins generated after forking.

One of the main features of blockchain is decentralization. There is no need to elaborate on the advantages of decentralization, but its disadvantages are also obvious, one of which is that consensus is easily split, after all, it is difficult to satisfy everyone.

When there is a big disagreement in a certain aspect, and both sides are evenly matched and unwilling to give in, it often leads to a hard fork, where one chain splits into two and develops independently. For example, the dispute over the large and small blocks of BTC and the dispute over the future development direction caused the community to be in chaos, and finally BTC forked into BCH.

In the article "Compared to this, the "BCH fork" is just a small case! So what is a fork?", we also focused on the difference between soft forks and hard forks, and mentioned that: after the hard fork, the original holders of the coin, in theory, own every coin after the fork.

It should be noted here that not all hard forks generate forked coins. Only when the hard fork is caused by a big disagreement between the two parties, and both parties have enough support from community members, will a forked coin be generated and the forked coin can "survive". The Ethereum Constantinople upgrade mentioned at the beginning is a hard fork, but there is no disagreement in the community, so there is no surviving forked coin.

To sum up, fork coins are coins produced after forking. The fork coins that have survived so far are basically those produced by hard forks due to differences.

02Airdrop Coin

Airdrop coins, as the name suggests, are coins that "fall from the sky" and are given to you.

Unlike forked coins, which fork from the original blockchain and then develop independently, airdrop coins are "starting from scratch" and establishing their own business. Forked coins are like brothers splitting up, while airdrop coins are like various coupons given to you by a newly opened shopping mall.

For some airdrop coins, you need to fill in your wallet address to claim them; some require you to register an account or complete certain tasks before they are given to you; the most convenient one is that the project party directly takes a snapshot, and then gives you airdrop coins in proportion to the amount of your assets.

Taking EOS as an example, according to the statistics of eosdrops.io, as of now, there are 62 types of airdrop coins on EOS, most of which are direct snapshots, and the airdrop coins are given out in proportion to the number of EOS in the account.

There is no free lunch in the world, and airdrop coins are also a marketing tool for project parties: on the one hand, airdrops can acquire accurate users and increase the enthusiasm of participants; on the other hand, through the distribution of chips, the circulation of related tokens can be accelerated, expanding the influence and scope of use.

03 Summary

Forked coins are coins generated after the blockchain forks, and airdrop coins are coins given to users for marketing purposes. Whether it is forked coins or airdrop coins, the corresponding projects need to be valuable and recognized by users, and the relevant coins will only be valuable.

What are your experiences or tips on how to receive forked coins/airdropped coins? Please share your experiences in the comments section.

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" statement : This series of content is only for blockchain science popularization and does not constitute any investment advice or suggestions. If there are any errors or omissions, please leave a message to point them out. 』

Author | Fangfang

Produced by | Vernacular Blockchain (https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/pUlL-0HPeA37sFGg5c-giQ)