Litecoin Activated MimbleWimble Extension Blocks: Report

Litecoin activated MimbleWimble extension blocks as a privacy option that is finally available on the network so let’s read more today in our latest Litecoin news.

Finally, Litecoin activated MimbleWimble extension blocks two years after it was initially introduced. Litecoin achieved the 75% network consensus threshold that is required for activation after a few months of dialogue with some different miners on the network so far this, MWEB locked in for the activation at block height 2257920. The privacy-focused decentralized protocol that got its name from a spell from the Harry Potter book series, enables users to hide transaction data with the confidentiality feature while providing a foundation for other blockchains and improving the usability of the tokens.

With the MimbleWimble extension block, the users of the network can choose to perform confidential transactions and the end goal is to enhance the viability of Litecoin as a fungible currency that can be used for real-world transactions by lowering fees and adding more privacy as well as scalability. David Burkett who is an expert on this question and developer of GRIN ++, was tasked with leading the development of the Mimble Wimble protocol for LTC. The founder of Litecoin Charlie Lee commented:

“In terms of fungibility and privacy, I believe MWEB gets you 90% there. For most people, that’s good enough. It’s the difference between living in a glass house vs living in a house with windows. For people who need 100% privacy, they can live in a house with no windows.”

Litecoin acted as a testnet for BTC in the case of the Segregated Witness which is something observed by Lee as well. The upgrade was activated on LTC in 2017 and a few months later, Bitcoin followed with the activation of SegWit. As for MWEB, the founder of Bitcoin Takeover Vlad Costea said that he is in favor of bringing it into the world’s biggest crypto. Adam Back also wasn’t impressed by MWEB and said:

“IMO Mimble Wimble is not much of a privacy improvement as the transaction history will be recorded even if later elided, and the scaling gains only start to win at large size as transactions are bigger. also, the receiver online is inconvenient. Confidential Transactions I like ofc.”

The design of the MW protocol supports and extends the idea of Confidential Transactions that was proposed by the Blockstream CEO a decade ago. It was implemented by Greg Maxwell and Pieter Wuille but now it remains to be seen if the BIP Focused on MWEB will get out anytime soon.