🔹️ A BTC hard fork refers by definition to a change that occurs to BTC's blockchain which ends up giving us two split branches. One that is following up on the previous protocol, and another that matches the new version we've obtained.
These new versions of BTC are completely split from the original, as neither fully matches the other. They usually see the light of day to "improve" some of the aspects in which Bitcoin is undeniably lacking.
💪 The most recurrent examples would be BTC's mining massive energy consumption, wobbly scalability, and more-than-often questionable anonymity. Because yes, perhaps it might be today's most popular cryptocurrency, however, the potential "risks" that come with it make you question whether it is truly worth all the fuss.
But this is where
BTCU comes into action. Because you see, perhaps there are forks such as Bitcoin Cash that address Bitcoin's scalability, Bitcoin Gold that takes head-on BTC's mining issues, or even Bitcoin Private (BTCP) that ensure users privacy, but none of these "solutions" were ever combined or put together for maximum efficiency - BTCU however, is here to change that.
😎 The BTCU blockchain is similar to the Ethereum concept that generally opposes standard overpriced mining methods. The additional functions that set it away from the other BTC forks are the creation of smart contracts as well as native atomic swaps as the basic principle for the implementation of transactions.
At the end of the day, this introduces a new level of creation and development of dAPP solutions, with measures that make it more comfortable for the user to have and everything simply much easier. Because for BTCU, what matters to most are not only the results but also the means❗