In continuation of our series on noncanonical ways to make money, we have already covered airdrops & bounties as well as proof-of-stake blockchains that let you earn interest on holding coins. There are multiple ways to accumulate free cryptocurrency, such as mining, lending coins, or running a masternode, but today we’ll focus on hard forks.
Why hard forks are personal for AirdropAlert
The Bitcoin Cash fork is actually one of the reasons this website exists. Back in 2017, we were already farming airdrops full-time and making good money while travelling the world. Everywhere we went, we talked to dozens of people about airdrops, and the same problem kept coming up: a massive information gap. People simply didn’t know this free money existed, or how to claim it safely.
Meanwhile, we had been following the Bitcoin scaling drama for months. When it became clear the fork was really coming, the idea clicked. Someone needed to build a website for airdrops and hard forks, because too many people were leaving free money on the table. This fork was going to be huge, not just for security reasons, but for the claim itself. AirdropAlert was born shortly after.
Fun side note: around 15 friends sent me their Bitcoin, a few hundred BTC combined, because they were too scared to claim the Bitcoin Cash fork themselves and mess something up. I claimed it for all of them. Obviously, I took a small management fee for the service 😉
I am not a coder, will I understand hard forks?
Sure, you will. Just keep on reading.
A fork is a condition that occurs in an open blockchain whereby the state of the blockchain diverges into two states. Complicated? Let’s simplify.
Say our old friends Bob and Alice mine Bitcoin blocks, and then they broadcast their mined blocks out into the world. Now something interesting happens. It turns out Alice found the latest block only 2-3 seconds faster than Bob. The question is, whose pot of gold should be validated?
Half of the network heard Alice’s block first, while the other half heard Bob’s. Kaboom! We’ve got two different states and two different perspectives on the blockchain. Here comes the fork…
Now we have a second, shorter chain, and the probability is very low that two other miners on that shorter chain will find the next block at the same time. As soon as another miner on the longer chain finds the next block, the whole network gets back to the older, longer, better chain. This happens all the time, and it’s normal because it is not deliberate. These forks are called temporary.
There are other types of forks, though: soft ones and hard ones. With a soft fork, the rules get stricter, and old nodes still accept the new blocks. The upgrade activates smoothly once enough of the network enforces the new rules. A hard fork changes the rules in a way old nodes reject, which guarantees a split into two chains. That split is exactly where the free coins come from.
How am I supposed to earn free cryptocurrency on this hard fork thing?
Here is a portion of good news. If you hold coins through a hard fork, you get a bunch of new coins on the new chain. It makes sense, right? New blockchain, new coins!
Because it’s a hard fork, you receive new coins you can later sell for real money. Without further ado, here is how you claim them.
- Before the fork, make sure you have a wallet where you control your private keys, or research whether your exchange supports the fork.
- Here is the tricky one. Move your funds to a new address after the fork, but retain your private key for the old address. Your old private key gives you access to the new blockchain, while your funds stay safe if something goes wrong with the forked project.
- Download the wallet for the new blockchain.
- Don’t expect the coins to land right after the fork. It takes some time before the new blockchain is live and fully operational!
One warning before you claim: replay attacks
There is a hidden danger in claiming fork coins that most guides skip. When a chain splits, your transactions can be valid on both chains, unless the new chain adds something called replay protection.
Without it, spending coins on one chain lets anyone copy that exact signed transaction and rebroadcast it on the other chain. Your coins move on both networks, even though you only meant to spend on one. Nobody hacked you, and nobody stole your keys. The second network simply accepted a perfectly valid transaction twice.
Bitcoin Cash shipped with replay protection, which made claiming relatively safe. Plenty of smaller forks never bothered. So before you touch a forked chain, check whether it protects against replays. If it doesn’t, wait until wallets and exchanges publish safe splitting instructions, or use the move-to-a-new-address technique from the steps above before transacting on either chain. Rushing to claim fork coins is exactly how people lose the original ones.
Which hard forks actually paid out?
The 2017–2018 fork era produced dozens of Bitcoin spin-offs, and the results ranged from life-changing to worthless. Here is how the big ones played out.
Bitcoin Cash (BCH) remains the king of fork payouts. Holders received BCH at a 1:1 ratio in August 2017, and the coin opened trading at hundreds of dollars right away. We listed it as one of the first airdrops on AirdropAlert, and it still trades in the top ranks of the market today. Anyone who claimed and sold near the highs banked a serious bonus for doing nothing but holding BTC.
Bitcoin Gold (BTG) followed in October 2017 with another 1:1 distribution. It briefly traded above $400, then bled out for years. Claimers who sold early did great, while holders watched it fade into irrelevance.
Bitcoin SV (BSV) forked off from Bitcoin Cash itself in late 2018, proving that forks can fork. BCH holders received BSV for free, and despite endless controversy around its figurehead, the coin traded high enough for years that claiming was clearly worth it.
Ethereum Classic (ETC) deserves a mention as the original fork payout from 2016. ETH holders received ETC for free after the DAO split, and it still maintains a multi-billion dollar market cap today.
The pattern across all of them is identical. Claiming early and selling into the hype was almost always the winning move. The fork coin rarely outperforms the original chain long term, but free money is free money.
Hard forks in 2026: where did the free money go?
The golden age of fork payouts ended years ago. After 2018, the market figured out that most Bitcoin spin-offs were cash grabs, and exchanges stopped rushing to list every new fork coin. Big distribution events moved on to a new format: the modern token airdrop, which is exactly what we track every day.
Fork drama itself never died, though. In 2026, Bitcoin went through a fresh governance battle over a proposal called BIP-110, which aimed to restrict data storage on the chain and briefly raised the possibility of another split. Spoiler: no free coins came out of it. We broke down the whole saga, including why it fizzled, in our BIP-110 explainer.
One final warning that never expires: whenever fork rumors circulate, fake “claim your coins” websites appear within days. No legitimate fork ever asks for your seed phrase. If a site wants your private keys to “verify” or “claim” fork coins, it exists to rob you. Check our airdrop listings instead, where every claim we publish is verified first.
Want more ways to earn while simply holding? Have a look at proof-of-stake, masternodes, and lending.
FAQ
Do I still get free coins from hard forks? Rarely. Major fork payouts largely ended after 2018, and modern “free money” events happen through token airdrops instead. When a real fork does occur, holding your own keys before the snapshot remains the way to qualify.
What was the biggest hard fork payout ever? Bitcoin Cash, by a wide margin. BTC holders received BCH 1:1 in August 2017, and it instantly traded at hundreds of dollars per coin.
Is it safe to claim fork coins? Only with the right precautions. Move your original coins to a new address first, keep the old private key for claiming, and verify the fork has replay protection before transacting on either chain.
What is a replay attack? A trick where a transaction you signed on one chain gets copied and rebroadcast on the other chain after a split, moving your coins on both networks. Replay protection in the fork’s code prevents it.
Where can I find upcoming forks and airdrops? Right here. AirdropAlert has verified and listed free crypto distributions since 2017, starting with the Bitcoin Cash fork itself.
The above references an opinion and is for information purposes only. It is not intended to be investment advice. Seek a duly licensed professional for investment advice.
