Soft Fork

A soft fork is a type of blockchain fork that allows for updates to be made to the protocol without requiring all nodes to upgrade their software. In a soft fork, the new rules are backward-compatible with the old rules, meaning that nodes that haven't upgraded can still validate transactions on the network. This is achieved by tightening the rules for valid transactions, so that transactions that were previously considered valid are now rejected.

Example

For example, let's say that the original rules of a blockchain network require a transaction to have a minimum fee of 1 unit of the network's cryptocurrency. In a soft fork to update the protocol, the minimum fee requirement is increased to 2 units. Nodes that have upgraded to the new protocol will reject transactions that do not meet the new minimum fee requirement. However, nodes that have not upgraded will still consider transactions with a 1 unit fee to be valid, as the new rules are backward-compatible with the old rules.

Disruption

Soft forks are generally considered to be less disruptive than hard forks, as they do not require a complete overhaul of the network. However, they can still cause issues if not all nodes upgrade, as there is a risk of a split in the network if some nodes continue to validate transactions with the old rules while others use the new rules.

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