Coin events like hard forks are events that can affect the market for a coin or, in some instances, the coin itself. For instance, coins may be split into multiple different coins, on-chain transfers may be halted, or may have some other transformative action applied across holders’ coins.

The algorithms of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin Cash more or less ensure that blocks will be mined at frequent and regular intervals, but they rely on community consensus to determine the contents of those blocks. This means that transactions will be confirmed and included in blocks as long as someone is mining on the network (or validating and confirming transactions), but there may be disagreement around what transactions to include and how to do it. When there’s enough disagreement, the blockchain can fork, or end up with two parallel chains and coins that share a single history.

When a hard fork that results in two independent coins occurs, anyone who held the original cryptocurrency before it forked will end up with the same amount (1:1) of both coins after the fork. For example, if you had 1 BCH before the fork and we decide to support both coins, you will end up with 1 BCH and 1 unit of the new coin.