The protocol hides and mixes transactions, increasing fungibility and privacy. The use of the tool will be optional for users and exchanges with support for Litecoin.
The Litecoin (LTC) MimbleWimble Extended Block (MWEB) protocol code reached its completion and now is waiting for a formal audit. Developer David Burkett’ made the announcement. The developer spent a year working hard on a tool that focuses on giving fungibility and privacy.
The MimbleWimble protocol ran smoothly under the eye of a team of technicians and users during the past six months. Once the audit reaches its maturity and its compatibility gets its verification, it will be ready for implementation.
The code receives the name MimbleWimble in association with one of the spells in the Harry Potter saga and books, which works by binding an opponent’s tongue to prevent him from communicating.
That concept is the primary source of the protocol, and it is public since 2016. Someone named Tom Elvis Jedusor (the French name for Voldemort in the famous series of books by JK Rowling) published the original white paper of MWEB on a bitcoin research channel.
The document presented a proposal to increase privacy, scalability, and fungibility in cryptocurrencies. The document’s theory emphasized bitcoin’s condition, whose system makes every transaction and balance available for the world to see and track.
So with the idea of achieving greater fungibility and improving privacy as a fundamental human right, in 2019, the Litecoin Foundation decided to adopt the MWEB protocol. That same year, the protocol became a reality due to Grin and Beam’s projects, which managed to incorporate it.
MimbleWimble works as a combination of different technologies, including confidential transactions and currency mixing. An implementation that would also be active as an adjacent chain interconnected next to the main chain of Litecoin, and, therefore, its use is entirely optional, as detailed in the official LTC blog.
Litecoin users require a cryptocurrency wallet to integrate MimbleWimble and decide whether they want to move their funds privately. On the other hand, exchanges that support Litecoin can decide whether or not to support the MWEB feature without being obliged to adopt it.
Litecoin Seems now to be as Private as Monero
The Litecoin Foundation has also revealed that the community said that MWEB should be optional after understanding that private cryptocurrencies face the risk of suffering exclusion from the market. This situation happened to Monero.
Monero was not well received in countries like South Korea and others that adhered to the Financial Action Task Force’s guidelines to avoid and fight against money laundering, including the controversial travel rule. This rule obliges virtual asset service providers or VASPs, including cryptocurrency exchanges, to disclose their clients’ information.
All Monero transactions are as fungible and private as cash payments. Litecoin, with the extra features of MWEB, will be the most cash-like cryptocurrency. It will reach an essential spot in the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization.
By: Jenson Nuñez
