Grin: Hard Fork
As previously announced 11, Grin will fork four times in its first two years of existence, every 60*24*7*26 = 262,080 blocks (roughly 6 month intervals), set in the code to block heights 262,080, 524,160, 786,240, and 1,048,320. The first network upgrade is expected to happen in mid-July. Compatible versions of grin node, grin-wallet, and grin-miner will be versioned 2.0.0 or greater. The first releases of these are scheduled for June.
This document describes the breaking changes, timeline and communications that will take place, with the intention that this upgrade goes as smoothly as possible and that ecosystem participants can make the necessary preparations.
Important Information:
Grin v2.0.0 is a network wide upgrade. Apart from updating their binaries in order to transact after the upgrade, users are not required to do anything. Stored grins will not be affected. Beware of scams telling you to move your coins anywhere.
What is a hardfork?
The cryptocurrency mainnet operates according to certain rules. To improve network performance or correct errors, changes are periodically introduced into it. A hard fork represents changes that are not compatible with previous versions of software supporting the cryptocurrency network. In order to continue to mine the cryptocurrency, miners need to update the software.
In some cases, as a result of a hard fork, a completely new cryptocurrency may appear, as happened with Bitcoin Cash and EthereumPoW.