Glossary

User-Activated Soft Fork (UASF)

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A User-Activated Soft Fork (UASF) is an update or change to the Bitcoin network’s protocol initiated by users or nodes, who integrate new code into their Bitcoin implementations and demonstrate their acceptance of the change so that miners and other users can implement the same changes knowing they will maintain consensus. Since the update is a soft fork, updating is not required because the changes to the protocol are backwards compatible. If a node does not update, they are not harmed at all.

Related Terms
Soft Fork
A soft fork is a fork, or a change to a project's source code, which is backwards compatible, meaning that it is not imperative that all nodes adopt the upgrade.
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Bitcoin Node
A node is a discrete member of a network which interacts with other nodes to form the network. Bitcoin nodes store and validate the blockchain and exchange blocks and transactions with one another in order to maintain consensus.
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Consensus
Consensus is the ideal and the method of coordination between individuals in a decentralized system. Consensus is achieved at the development level with regards to changes to the Bitcoin protocol, and it is also achieved with regards to agreement on the state of the blockchain.
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Miner-Activated Soft Fork (MASF)
A Miner-Activated Soft Fork (MASF) is a soft fork which is activated by miners who begin mining blocks under the updated ruleset.
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Hard Fork
A Hard fork is a consensus change that is not backwards compatible. It requires that all nodes on a network upgrade in order to avoid splitting the network.
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