BRC-20 inventor wants to stop UniSat fork

On Jan. 2, X (formerly Twitter) user Domo, creator of the Bitcoin BRC-20 token standard, said he would oppose an upcoming fork proposed by UniSat Wallet.

“I believe rushing these updates in BRC20 is reckless,”  said Domo. “[They] disregard their peer indexers, and could potentially harm the broader community of BRC20 users.”

Recognizing the serious implications and valuations involved, I believe rushing these updates in BRC20 is reckless, disregards their peer indexers, and could potentially harm the broader community of BRC20 users. The 0.8/0.9 incident highlighted the complexities of integrating… https://t.co/RccP7bYdVY

— domo (@domodata) January 2, 2024

The creator then highlighted recent bugs involving the Ordinals 0.8 and 0.9 updates as part of the growing complexities of integrating new updates into the BRC-20 standard. “It is clear these changes may not be safe to integrate without the robust testing, coordination, and validation infrastructure that is currently being built,” Domo wrote while also alleging that UniSat’s fork proposal is “part of a considered, ongoing strategy to gain control of the protocol.”

UniSat has since clarified that its proposed “fork” is actually a “split” that separates BRC-20 version 0.9 assets from the upcoming Ordinals Jubilee upgrade with “different sets with different rules, but still residing in a same physical blockchain.” “UniSat will follow the Ordinals Jubilee upgrade, to confirm that BRC-20 is still on Ordinals without splitting into an isolated protocol,” developers wrote  and teased a new white paper detailing protocol enhancements to be released on Jan. 31.

We were asked: What do you mean by using the word 'split'? Can you expand it?

It’s actually a good question. The reason we use the word 'split' is because it’s much more hard to deal with than a 'fork'.

A 'fork' is a stream physically broken into two streams, which go in their…

— UniSat Wallet - Store, Inscribe and Search. (@unisat_wallet) January 2, 2024

BRC-20 tokens have surged in popularity as one of the largest technological advancements in Bitcoin’s history. Bitcoin Ordinals is a numbering system that assigns a unique number to each satoshi, or 1/100 millionth of a Bitcoin ( BTC ), enabling tracking and transfer. Combined with the inscription process, which adds a layer of data to each satoshi, users can mint unique digital assets on the Bitcoin blockchain.

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Developer Casey Rodarmor created the Bitcoin Ordinals system in January 2023, which inspired the creation of the BRC-20 token standard by Domo in March 2023. Currently, BRC-20 tokens hold a combined market cap of $1.76 billion.