Forking a coin is free. Anyone can fork any coin at any time. Most miners will mine whatever makes money, but some may mine for a possible future payout or altr

Forking a coin is free. Anyone can fork any coin at any time. Most miners will mine whatever makes money, but some may mine for a possible future payout or altruistic reasons. A fork is generally considered successful if it carries economic value. That is decided by the amount of users transacting in the currency. Working exchanges are a requirement for this, but not enough (as has been experimentally demonstrated).