# Fork

*Crypto & Digital Assets — Finicade finance glossary*

A fork is a change to a blockchain's rules. A soft fork is backwards-compatible and old nodes still follow along; a hard fork is not, so anyone who doesn't upgrade ends up on a separate chain. Contested hard forks create two assets and two communities — Bitcoin Cash and Ethereum Classic both exist because a rule change was rejected by part of the network.

**Also known as:** hard fork, soft fork, chain split

**Related terms:** [Consensus Mechanism](https://finicade.com/glossary/consensus-mechanism), [Blockchain](https://finicade.com/glossary/blockchain), [Node](https://finicade.com/glossary/node), [Bitcoin](https://finicade.com/glossary/bitcoin), [Ethereum](https://finicade.com/glossary/ethereum)

Source: https://finicade.com/glossary/fork