# What are Ordinals?

Ordinals are a numbering scheme for Dogecoin shibes (the smallest units of DOGE). They enable us to track and transfer individual shibes across different wallets. 

Each shibe is assigned a number in the order in which they're mined, and are transferred from "transaction inputs" to "transaction outputs" in a first-in-first-out basis. 

They're called "ordinals" because both the number and the transfer schemes each rely on their respective *order.* Numbering is based on the *order* in which shibes are mined, and transfers are based on the *order* of the transaction inputs and outputs.

## Ordinal Theory

Ordinal theory is a protocol sequentially assigning numbers to shibes - the smallest units of Dogecoin - and then tracking these shibes as they're spent across various transactions.

Ordinal theory works natively on Dogecoin, entirely independent of any other tokens, blockchains, or changes to Dogecoin itself. 

Other assets, such as images, texts, video files, etc., can then be attached to shibes using ordinal numbers as identifiers and tracked as they move across doginal-friendly wallets.