Hard forks represent a permanent divergence from the previous version of a blockchainAs a distributed ledger technology (DLT), a blockchain is a digital ledger that can create an immutable record of transactions.... Read More. This divergence leads to a separation of the blockchain, as some nodes no longer meet consensusConsensus allows a distributed system such as a blockchain to function as a decentralized peer-to-peer system without the need to... Read More, and two different versions of the network run simultaneously. At this point, a forkA fork is a modification to the rules governing a blockchain. Developers may create "forks" as part of an upgrade... Read More on the blockchain occurs where one path continues with the current set of rules while the other follows a new set of rules. Hard forks introduce a new set of rules that are not backward compatible with the old, resulting in a permanent split between those who choose to follow each chainA chain is a linear sequence of data blocks. Each block contains a cryptographic hash of the previous block and... Read More, respectively.
