If you were attached in cryptocurrency discussions, you might have heard the term “Fork”. Especially, hard forks are frequently discussed within the frame due to some reasons. There are few cases of occurrences of new currencies that have split from the parent currency. This is the most impacted result of hard forks. On the other hand, airdrops also create some changes in digital currency wallets. In the stranger’s perspective, both airdrops and hard forks work almost similarly. But there are considerable distinctions between these two. This discussion is an overview of airdrops and hard forks in cryptocurrency.
What are cryptocurrency Hard Forks?
Though it is a frequently heard term, a minor confusion is remained within the users due to the term “airdrops”. In simple terms, hard forks are the basement of creating new branches of a parent cryptocurrency. The child cryptocurrency is developed on top of the basic code of the original cryptocurrency network. But it consists of some specialties/differences of the protocol and services. Often, the newly occurred network might support sophisticated performances. Especially, the size of the blocks in the fresh network might be more supportive.
In general, a hard fork attends the topic after special considerations of the developing team and the minors. It is occurring in order to open new pathways for the users and miners who are gathered around the parent network. Bitcoin cash hard fork of Bitcoin, MoneroV hard fork of Monero are some of the remarked points of hard fork occurrences.
What Are Cryptocurrency Airdrops?
Airdrops delivers cryptocurrency to a set of investors. In majority cases, these deliveries are allocated for the token holders of the parent network. This is the main reason of been confused about airdrops and hard forks.
However, the parent currency token holders inherit the new tokens as per their current coordinate of blocks. The token holders who priory invested beyond the splitting block are eligible of receiving new tokens. The given tokens are equal in volume. For instant, at the initiation of bitcoin cash (which is a hard fork of bitcoin), the token holders of Bitcoin were given by bitcoin cash. The given bitcoin cash ware equivalent volume to the pre-owned coins.
There is another case of occurring airdrops; when currency developers decided to upgrade the recognition of the currencies. For that, the token holders were given additional coins. Even, the holders get surprises by experiencing unannounced new tokens in their wallets. However, these free offers might create an unnecessary surplus of coins. If a majority of the investors sell these additional tokens, the value of the token degrades at a considerable level.