At present is the day, Litecoin’s tenth anniversary. Congratulations to Charlie Lee and everybody concerned within the challenge over time. We’re exploring Litecoin’s historical past by means of the eyes of its creator. We coated its fair launch, the long-hard road to exchanges adopting LTC, and we introduced the SegWit story. It’s time to complete it.
The final time, we launched Bitmain’s co-founder Jihan Wu. Reportedly, he was singlehandedly stopping SegWit adoption within the Bitcoin blockchain. Lee’s plan was to make use of Litecoin as a Testnet of kinds for SegWit. “I spotted that right here’s an opportunity for Litecoin to do one thing to assist Bitcoin. If we are able to get SegWit on Litecoin, it could possibly filter out all of the FUD and show that SegWit is protected and an excellent improve for Bitcoin.” To perform that, he needed to persuade miners to facet with him and never with the producer of probably the most environment friendly ASICs.
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In line with Coindesk, there was one other essential incentive for Litecoin to undertake SegWit:
“Since SegWit may probably pave the best way for applied sciences that broaden the worth proposition of cryptocurrencies, the transfer towards accepting the improve has reignited pleasure across the usually less-popular cryptocurrency. Litecoin’s worth has almost tripled because the finish of March consequently.”
And that is the place right now’s story begins.
LTC worth chart for 10/13/2021 on FX | Supply: LTC/USD on TradingView.com
Charlie Lee Talks To Litecoin‘s Miners
Throughout the finish of 2016 and the start of 2012, Lee talked to everybody. One in every of his first victories was to get “Innosilicon, one other LTC ASIC maker,” to his facet. On this a part of the story, we are able to see how arduous Jihan Wu was taking part in. A “large LTC Miner” was able to sign for SegWit in precept, however, since his machines have been in a farm managed by Jihan Wu, he was afraid that he would possibly lose entry to low-cost electrical energy.
Innosilicon was instantly on board with SegWit. They agreed with me that it is the finest path ahead. And so they have been in a position to persuade a few of their prospects to help SegWit.
One in every of their prospects was an enormous LTC miner. He owned about 5% of the hashrate. Having him was large.
— Charlie Lee (@SatoshiLite) October 8, 2021
The target was to get “75% of blocks sign for SegWit inside a 2-week timeframe.” Simpler mentioned than performed. LitecoinPool was the primary nice pool to facet with SegWit. One other huge mining pool, F2pool, additionally promised to do it, however they didn’t immediately. This turned out to be nice for the trigger as a result of they offered a transparent sign that the market supported the SegWit transition. Lee narrates, “over the following month, F2pool really flipped flopped. They’d sign after which cease signaling. The market reacted accordingly. When F2pool began signaling, the value will go up, and vice versa.”
To complicate issues, “Jihan needed me to personally go to him and the miners in China to persuade them about SegWit.” Lee didn’t just like the power-play, however that was nothing. As increasingly miners signaled for SegWit, Jihan turned to the ace up his sleeve. There was a rumor that “Bitmain was constructing a ton of LTC miners and was going to show all of them on themselves to dam the improve.”
Over the following week, increasingly miners began signaling for SegWit and it began to look inevitable. After which this occurred. Bitmain was constructing a ton of LTC miners and was going to show all of them on themselves to dam the improve. 😡https://t.co/Zvs9srExJJ
— Charlie Lee (@SatoshiLite) October 8, 2021
It was time for Charlie Lee to name within the huge weapons.
The Person Activated Tender Fork
Since each the miners and the market have been clearly signaling in help of SegWit, Charlie Lee felt he had the fitting “to tug the UASF trump card out.” One of many wonders of decentralized organizations is that the customers can even activate a smooth fork. “If nearly all of customers and exchanges run the UASF code, SegWit will activate.” If that occurred, miners needed to comply and undertake SegWit as nicely.
UASF stands for Person Activated Tender Fork. What it means is that as a substitute of getting the smooth fork (SegWit) being miner activated, the person decides to activate the smooth fork in a future date. If nearly all of customers and exchanges run the UASF code, SegWit will activate.
— Charlie Lee (@SatoshiLite) October 8, 2021
The specter of a UASF was an excessive amount of to bear, so the miners agreed to fulfill with Charlie Lee on-line and work issues out.
Sure we’ll do roundtable on-line with @SatoshiLite ASAP, not want to attend for June. https://t.co/rVWQjLu5kJ
— Jiang Zhuoer BTC.TOP (@JiangZhuoer) April 20, 2017
And the remaining is history, “On April 21, I met with Jihan, Innosilicon, and miners for over 8 hours IIRC. It was exhausting.“ They reached an settlement, this is the blog post saying it. Amongst different issues, it says:
“We agree that protocol improve ought to be made below neighborhood consensus, and shouldn’t be unilateral motion of builders nor miners. We advocate that Litecoin protocol improve resolution ought to be made based mostly on the wants of the customers, by means of the roundtable assembly voting course of, and activated by miner voting.”
Charlie Lee reflects, “Though this appears so unhealthy for a decentralized cryptocurrency to have a closed door assembly to make selections that have an effect on the way forward for Litecoin, I felt prefer it was a compromise I’m keen to take. It’s higher than an all out battle between the miners and I.”
On Could tenth, 2017, SegWit was activated on Litecoin.
SegWit has activated on Litecoin! 💥😁 pic.twitter.com/lpeklpQpZe
— Charlie Lee (@SatoshiLite) May 10, 2017
After that, a number of historic transactions passed off
“Lots of people have been saying that segwit is unsafe as a result of segwit cash are “anyone-can-spend” and could be stolen. So lets put this to the check. I put up $1MM of LTC right into a segwit handle. You possibly can see it’s a segwit handle as a result of I despatched and spent 1 LTC first to disclose the redeemscript.”
- Just a few months later, Bitcoin activated SegWit by means of a UASF. “It’s arduous to know precisely how a lot Litecoin helped with this. I really feel prefer it positively has helped.”
- Days later, Charlie Lee and Strike’s Jack Mallers starred in the first Lightning Network request/ payment transaction on Litecoin. That man Jack Mallers has a method to become involved in historic transactions, like this one, and this one.
- That very same month, Lee did his first Atomic Swap transaction. “This exhibits how one can transfer cash between completely different chains in a decentralized method. It was an incredible proof of idea and paved the best way for decentralized exchanges.”
- And later, he did another Atomic Swap however this time with Bitcoin.
- And the following month, Lee did “the primary ever cross-chain swap between BTC and LTC by way of Lightning.” This time it was with the now world-famous Lightning Labs.
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Wasn’t that a tremendous, wonderful story? We realized a lot. And, though we mentioned this was the final chapter within the Litecoin 10-year historical past, Charlie Lee has one other story to inform. Be part of us tomorrow for the notorious story of Charlie promoting all of his Litecoin. One other legendary second in crypto land.
Featured Picture: Charlie Lee's image from this tweet | Charts by TradingView
