Ordinals Litecoin fork took one week and was ‘quite simple,’ says creator

A tiny monetary bounty and an aptitude for coding were each it took to fork the Ordinals protocol to the world’s second-ever cryptocurrency network, Litecoin (LTC) earlier this week, its creator told Cointelegraph.

On Feb. 18, an Australian bundle technologist by the sanction of Anthony Guerrera posted a repository to GitHub that forked the Bitcoin (BTC) Ordinals protocol to Litecoin. This allowed for nonfungible token (NFT)-like assets connected the Litecoin web successful overmuch the aforesaid mode it had made it to Bitcoin earlier successful the year.

In an interrogation with Cointelegraph, Guerrera said helium was spurred to marque a Litecoin Ordinal fork owed to a 5 LTC bounty posted by the pseudonymous Twitter idiosyncratic Indigo Nakamoto connected Feb. 11 that roseate to 22 LTC, oregon astir $2,000, to anyone who was archetypal to successfully make a fork.

22 $LTC to larboard Ordinals to #Litecoin from:
+ 5 $LTC @indigo_nakamoto
+ 5 $LTC @ryanwrights
+ 5 $LTC @MASTERBTCLTC
+ 2 $LTC @ChiefLitecoin
+ 5 $LTC @finitemaz https://t.co/7X4JfMzq97

— Indigo | Nakamotoist (@indigo_nakamoto) February 16, 2023

“I knew it was imaginable due to the fact that Litecoin has taproot arsenic good arsenic SegWit,” Guerrera said, adding:

“I was successful a spot of a huffy unreserved to effort and get it done arsenic accelerated arsenic I could.”

Taproot and SegWit are the names fixed to the Bitcoin protocol updates that aimed to amended the privateness and ratio of the web but besides allowed for NFT-like structures called “inscriptions” to beryllium attached to satoshis.

The outgo to inscribe an representation onto the Bitcoin blockchain tin cost tens of dollars depending connected its size but Guerrera said the outgo to inscribe a litoshi — the LTC equivalent to a satoshi — is “about 2 cents.”

A constituent of contention amongst Bitcoiners is the block abstraction Ordinals instrumentality up connected the web owed to their information size being acold greater than transactions. Guerrera doesn’t deliberation this contented volition beryllium arsenic salient connected Litecoin owed to its larger artifact size but could inactive perchance eventuate.

“Pandora's Box has already been opened and idiosyncratic was going to bash it truthful it whitethorn arsenic good beryllium me.”

Guerrera said his LTC fork took astir 1 week to make arsenic “the changes were rather simple.” He explained helium updated the Ordinals codification to enactment with inputs from the Litecoin web alternatively of the Bitcoin network.

Parameters that differed betwixt the blockchains specified arsenic the full imaginable fig of coins and artifact clip instauration differences besides had to beryllium accounted for successful the fork.

In a Feb. 19 tweet, Guerrera said he’d inscribed the archetypal ever Litecoin Ordinal, putting the MimbleWimble whitepaper onto the blockchain successful the so-named “inscription 0.”

— Crypto Anthony (@anthonyonchain) February 19, 2023

The inscription of the whitepaper is successful the aftermath of the May 2022 Mimblewimble Extension Blocks (MWEB) upgrade that allows Litecoin users to opt-in to confidential transactions and different blockchain improvements specified arsenic helping trim excess and unnecessary transaction data.

Related: How the Ordinals question volition payment the Bitcoin blockchain

“I wanted to dedicate the archetypal inscription to that and marque it alert that Litecoin present has this privateness sidechain attached to it,” Guerrera said.

“I'm a instrumentality of the exertion and I similar that privateness tin go a happening connected these nationalist ledgers.”

As for the aboriginal of the forked protocol, Guerrera volition “keep contributing to this fork arsenic overmuch arsenic I can” and larboard crossed updates from the archetypal Ordinals.

“I astir apt privation to manus implicit this arsenic I don't privation it to instrumentality excessively overmuch of my time,” helium added. “I'm doing different things. I've got different things connected my plate.”