We always hear the word forks so I'm gonna try and explain it in simplest way possible. Buckle up, we're gonna learn some new things today!

First some fancy cookies analogy!

Let us say there is a big wide road and people standing in a line across.

‍

They all share a big bag of cookies! Once a person find a cookie, they place it on the road and they all take a step forward.

REMEMBER: WHEN A SINGLE PERSON FINDS A COOKIE, THEY ALL MOVE FORWARD A STEP!

They all like chocolate flavour cuz chocolate's good!

Now those people start taking steps and leaving chocolate cookies behind. Everyone is happy and they're all in AGREEMENT.

Soft Forks:

Now they find out that the bag is out of pure chocolate cookies. All the cookies that are left now are chocolate CHIP cookies. Now all those people agree to eat chocolate CHIP cookies. They throw out any OLD pure chocolate cookies they find.

This is a Soft Fork because people who were used to eating pure chocolate cookies have agreed to eat chocolate CHIP cookies. But know that any pure chocolate cookies are always THROWN AWAY!

This is called a Soft Fork because it is Backwards Compatible! People used to eating pure chocolate cookies have AGREED to eat chocolate CHIP cookies.

Simply, A change in cookies doesn't break the AGREEMENT OF PEOPLE!

Hard Forks:

Now imagine people had discovered that the bag also has orange cookies!

‍

Now that they find orange cookies, some people really want to taste that yummy orange cookies. But this is blockchain! All people need to be in AGREEMENT!

So while a group wants to eat orange cookies, another group says orange SUCKS! We still want to eat CHOCOLATE CHIP ONLY!

No group wants to back down. They are NOT in AGREEMENT. So they SPLIT! Chocolate chip group keep eating CHOCOLATE CHIP while the other group of people START EATING ORANGE COOKIES!

This is a Hard Fork! The Blockchain SPLITS! People divide onto different roads.

‍

If you follow from the starting of road..

Initially, you'll keep seeing pure chocolate cookies and at some point, you start seeing chocolate CHIP cookies. But the road doesn't divide because it is a SOFT FORK!

And then at some point, the road DIVIDES! One side you'll still see chocolate CHIP cookies and the other side of the road you'll see ORANGE cookies because it is a HARD FORK!

Analogy:

1. Cookies are blocks
2. Finding a cookie is mining
3. The road is a blockchain
4. People are miners
5. Agreement of people is Consensus