Litecoin's MW Privacy Feature Is Now Code Complete
Mimblewimble Extension Blocks (MWEB) will soon add confidential transactions to Litecoin.
Key Takeaways
- Litecoin's Mimblewimble privacy feature is code complete.
- Only part of the code has been submitted for review, and a review of the code may take weeks or months.
- The feature is nevertheless close to going live on Litecoin's mainnet sometime this year.
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Litecoin’s upcoming Mimblewimble Extension Blocks (MWEB) feature is now code complete, according to developer David Burkett.
The Cryptocurrency
Burkett submitted the code review to GitHub on Mar. 15. He noted that only the libmw code is complete and that 40% of Litecoin’s overall Mimblewimble code is not in the review. The second part of the code, which depends on the first, will be submitted for review soon.
The Litecoin Foundation has noted that the review process may “last a few weeks to a few months” depending on the speed of the auditing process. After that, miners and node operators will signal support for the update, allowing it to finally go live on Litecoin’s mainnet.
Litecoin’s Mimblewimble testnet was launched in September 2020 after more than a year of development, but this was aimed at developers. A final launch will bring the privacy feature to all users.
Why Mimblewimble?
Mimblewimble will be an optional feature that makes LTC transactions fairly untraceable, something that Bitcoin and many other leading cryptocurrencies do not achieve. The feature makes Litecoin comparable to Monero or Zcash.
Some have expressed fears that Litecoin could be delisted from exchanges due to new privacy coins regulations. However, Litecoin leader Charlie Lee says that the development team has talked to exchanges, and many leading exchanges say they will not delist LTC.
Litecoin considers Mimblewimble to be a fungibility improvement: the team aims to make Litecoin interchangeable through basic privacy improvements, not provide high-strength privacy.
At the time of writing this author held less than $75 of Bitcoin, Ethereum, and altcoins.
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