Can separate Bitcoin chains be merged back?

2

After a fork in a given chain, is it possible to merge the two chains back together so that they share the same blockchain?

Tabish Mir

Posted 2017-11-12T02:46:31.083

Reputation: 121

Answers

2

No it's not, it must be a blockchain not a blockgraph, if two blocks share the same parent then only one of them can be in the chain, and because blocks can't be 'editted' without simply remining them, you have to choose either one chain or the other. Even if you could, do that, there's a host of other issues like the same coins being spent on both chains, or the block height in the coinbase being wrong

MeshCollider

Posted 2017-11-12T02:46:31.083

Reputation: 8 735

1

In bitcoin each block in the chain contains a reference to one single parent block (except the very first block which has no parent block) thus this is not possible as would require a reference to two parent blocks.

croraf

Posted 2017-11-12T02:46:31.083

Reputation: 1 112