I'll start by explaining what hard fork is for less experienced readers.

Hard fork (or hardfork) - relates to blockchain technology, is a radical change to the network's protocol that makes previously invalid blocks (digital pieces of information) and transactions valid, or vice-versa. A hard fork requires all nodes or users to upgrade to the latest version of the protocol software.

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/h/hard-fork.asp

For a long time, there was discussion in the community about the Bitcoin scaling problem because of 1-megabyte block size, which led to longer transaction times and an increase in fees/commissions.

The first hard fork took place at block #478559 on 1 August 2017, which transformed into a Bitcoin Cash (BCH), that offers larger blocks (up to 8 megabytes at the start). Of course, to be honest with everybody and myself, I have to add that the BTC scaling problem is today not so important or even can be considered as resolved because we have the Lightning Network, where BTC transactions are practically instant and very cheap.

I already mentioned the most known BTC hard fork BCH and think that many of you know about another one, which is Bitcoin Gold (BTG).

So, let's dig in the true history of BTC forks (hard, soft) and summarise everything chronologically:


https://www.howtotoken.com/explained/bitcoin-forks-chronology-ultimate-list-forks/

As we can see there were already three soft forks (no new coin created) before BCH (XT, Unlimited, Classic) and Segwit fork before the Bitcoin Gold.

So, I am sure all of you now wonder: How Many Bitcoin Forks Are There? and how many new altcoins were created?

There are 105 Bitcoin forks (hard and soft) in total. Of those, 74 are considered active projects, the remaining 31 are considered historic and are no longer relevant.



https://www.forks.net/list/Bitcoin//1/2017-01-01/2020-01-01

1. BitcoinX (BCX), 2. ABitcoin (ABTC), 3. Bitcoin Hot (BTH), 4. Super Bitcoin (SBTC), 5. Bitcoin Platinum (BTP), 6. Bitcoin Oil (OBTC), 7. Bitcoin World (BTW), 8. Bitcoin Stake (BTCS), 9. Bitcoin Faith (BTF), 10 Lightning Bitcoin (LBTC, 11 Bitcoin Cash Plus (BCP), 12 Bitcoin Silver (BTCS), 13. Bitcoin Uranium (BUM), 14. Bitcoin Top (BTT), 15. Bitcoin Pizza (BPA), 16. Bitcoin File (BIFI),
17 Bitcoin God (GOD), 18 BitEthereum (BITE), 19 Bitcoin Segwit2x, 20 Bitcoin Smart (BCS), 21 Bitcoin Ore (BCO), 22 Bitvote (BTV), 23 Bitcoin Interest (BCI), 24 Bitcoin Rhodium (BTR), 25 Bitcoin Atom (BCA), 26 Bitcoin Private (BTCP), 27 Bitcoin Hush (BTCH), 28 Quantum Bitcoin (QBTC), 29 Bitcoin LITE (BTCL), 30 Bitcoin 2, 31 Big Bitcoin 32 Bitcoin Cloud, 33 Bitcoin Candy, 34 Bitcoin Lambo, 35 ClassicBitcoin, 36 BitcoinClean, 37 Bitcoin Lunar (BCL), 38 Bitcoin Prime: TBA, 39 Anonymous Bitcoin (ANON), 40 Fox BTC, 41 Bitcoin Reference Line, 42 MicroBitcoin, 43 BItcoin Classic, 44 Bitcoin Dao, 45 Bitcoin RM, 46 Bitcoin Air, 47 Bitcoin Post-Quantum, 48 Bithereum, 49 Bitcoin Stash, 50 Bitcoin Core, 51 Bitcoin Dollar, 52 Bitcoin Metal, 53 Hex, 54 Bitcoin All, 55 BitcoinCash Zero... and many more.

45 straightforward blockchain hard forks directly or indirectly originating from the Bitcoin main chain:



https://forkdrop.io/how-many-bitcoin-forks-are-there

To be continued because this is only until 2019. I wasn't able to find a full chronological list of BTC forks from start until today, so we can assume that the list is even bigger.

There is a discussion ongoing after I have published this article in the BTC community about hard forks, soft forks, and pure copycats which are started during this process. Many people stated that only a couple of these altcoins should be considered as real cryptocurrencies and the majority is nothing more as worthless copycats with nothing new at all.

Of course, I fully agree with all these statements, but the purpose of this article was to show: How Many Bitcoin Forks Are There? 

I was overwhelmed also and see many people are shocked when they realize that there are already more than 100 Bitcoins out there. I think this is not bad at all, especially for Bitcoin. I would say more, only BTC was forked so many times and has so many copies, few of them high in rankings on CMC, BTC is still strong and owns the longest chain. This shows how strong BTC really is and I am sure this is some kind of record.