One of the meanings of the word "fork" is branching. A fork refers to the splitting of a blockchain, during which it is copied, resulting in two blockchains – one remains unchanged, while the other undergoes modifications. As a result, a new cryptocurrency emerges, while the original one does not disappear.

There are two types of forks: hard fork and soft fork.

For example, Bitcoin Cash, the most well-known fork of the first cryptocurrency, was created this way: its developers advocated for increasing the block size in the blockchain – at that time, it was limited to 1 MB, but they wanted to raise this limit to 8 MB to process transactions faster. However, the majority chose a different path, so they decided to split. When this division occurred, all Bitcoin holders became owners of an equivalent amount of the new cryptocurrency. Since then, Bitcoin hard forks have happened multiple times, and even Bitcoin Cash has not avoided them.

A hard fork allows holders of the affected cryptocurrency to receive the new one for free; however, it can also have negative effects: its creation introduces direct competition for the original cryptocurrency. Too frequent forks undermine the stability of a cryptocurrency and reduce trust in it, especially since developers are not always driven solely by a desire to make improvements. In the case of Bitcoin forks, they may also aim to profit from its name and gain an initial boost due to its popularity.