Wiki / Concepts / Snapshot forks vs chain splits

Snapshot forks vs chain splits

From the Bitcoin Takeover Wiki · ✓ 8 sources · 0 podcast anchors · built 2026-11-13

Why some “forks” share Bitcoin's history and others only copy its balances, and why it matters for claiming coins.

◆ Takeover vieweditorial · opinion, labelled

The wiki's angle: whether a fork kept Bitcoin's history decides what holding at a fork block meant — a key in a wallet, or a row in an exchange's database.[2][6]

Contents

  1. Chain splits
  2. Snapshot forks
  3. Exchange snapshots
  4. References

Chain splits

In a chain split the new coin keeps Bitcoin's blocks up to the fork. The Bitcoin Top README puts it this way: “It shares the same transaction history with Bitcoin until it starts branching”[1]. The 2019 fork reviewer tested such coins by importing “all the shared pre-fork blockchain data” and swapping in his Bitcoin Core wallet.dat[2].

Snapshot forks

The same list marks four coins as “snapshot fork (no shared pre-fork blockchain history)”: Bitcoin CBC, Bitcoin Pizza, Bitcoin 2 and Bitcoin Private[2]. For Bitcoin 2 it quotes the plan that “the blockchain data will be pruned from over 150 GB to around 2 GB”[2]. Bitcoin Private's README describes it as “a fork of Zclassic, merging in a snapshotted UTXO set of Bitcoin”[3]. BitcoinCash Zero went further and announced snapshots of four chains at once[4].

Exchange snapshots

Some forks handed the snapshot to exchanges. Bitcoin Pay said “EXX.COM And OURDAX.COM A snapshot has been given first”[5]. Smart Bitcoin listed exchanges that had “agreed to take snapshot” for it[6]. Bitcoin Ore issued its first coins only “to users of these four exchanges at block height of 501949”[7]. New Bitcoin called itself a snapshot fork (“快照分叉”) at block 501225[8].

References

  1. primaryBitcoin Top README, GitHub bitcointop/bitcointop [archived]
  2. secondary“My list of 43(+3) reviewed Bitcoin forks”, Bitcointalk topic 2777849 (last update 26 Feb 2019) [archived]
  3. primaryBTCPrivate/BitcoinPrivate-legacy README (GitHub) [archived]
  4. primaryBitcoinCash Zero, “[ANN] [NEW] [FORK] BitcoinCash Zero $BCZ - 2019, January the 4th”, Bitcointalk topic 5086626 (18 Dec 2018) [archived]
  5. primaryBitcoin Pay website, btceasypay.com (Wayback Machine copy, 1 Feb 2018)
  6. primarySmart Bitcoin website, smartbitcoin.one (Wayback Machine copy, 21 May 2018)
  7. primaryBitcoin Ore website, bitcoinore.org (Wayback Machine copy, 20 Feb 2018)
  8. primaryNew Bitcoin (新比特币) website, newbitcoin.org (Wayback Machine copy, 4 Mar 2018)

Related

Claim-based airdrops
Coins that were not chain splits but let Bitcoin holders claim new tokens: CLAMs, Byteball, Stellar, Bitcore,
Source note: the 2019 fork list (johnsmithx)
The Bitcointalk list of 43 reviewed Bitcoin forks that this wiki cites as bth-review: who wrote it, how it tes
Bitcoin Private
A 2018 “fork-merge” that combined a Bitcoin UTXO snapshot with Zclassic's chain, then went offline in October
Categories: Concepts
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