Plain English
A reorganization (reorg) happens when the network discovers a longer or “heavier” chain than the one nodes had been building on, and switches to it. Blocks that were considered confirmed get rolled back, and their transactions return to the mempool. Single-block reorgs are normal; deep reorgs are rare and alarming.
How it actually works
Reorgs occur because of network latency: two miners produce blocks at nearly the same time on different forks. Eventually one fork gets longer, and nodes follow it. On Bitcoin, reorgs of 1–2 blocks happen occasionally; reorgs deeper than 6 blocks have only happened a handful of times. On Ethereum post-merge, reorgs are extremely rare due to finality gadgets.
What it means for you
Reorgs are why “1 confirmation” is not enough for large transactions. The rule of thumb: 6 confirmations on Bitcoin, 32 slots (~6 minutes) on Ethereum, and a few seconds on Solana with at least 32 confirmations. For high-value settlement, wait for full finality, not just first inclusion.
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