Soft Fork (SoftFork): Cryptocurrency

Soft-Fork

A soft-Fork (softfork) is a change in the Cryptocurrency protocol from the previously valid blocks values and transactions are made invalid.

Old nodes will recognize new blocks as valid, unlike a Hard Fork, a soft fork can still work with older versions of the protocol changed.

If a Wallet wants to support new soft fork rules it has to be upgraded.

See also bitcoin wiki page.

• Introduction limiting 1MB for a block was done through a soft fork.
• The pay-to-script-hash function, enhances code without changing structure values was also successfully added through a soft fork.
• SegWit was implemented in Bitcoin protocol using a soft fork in BIP141.

Trezor started supporting SegWit in August 2017

See also this article for more information about differences between soft forks and hard forks.

 
UASF vs MASF
When a majority of Miners upgrade to enforce new rules, it is defined as miner-activated soft fork (MASF).

When full nodes coordinate to enforce new rules, without the support from miners, it is called a user-activated soft fork (UASF).

See also Fork, Hard fork, Coin split

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