The Litecoin Foundation has just completed the MimbleWimble Extension Block (MWEB) code, which will increase the scaling and privacy of the cryptocurrency that the organization maintains.
MimbleWimble Extension Block
After over a year of continuous work, the MWEB code is now “complete”. The message was provided by Litecoin’s lead developer David Burkett.
Litecoin’s #MWEB is now “Code Complete” read the update at: https://t.co/FKAfQIlUnb #Litecoin # Litecoin10
– Litecoin Foundation (@LTCFoundation) March 16, 2021
He added that the code is now ready for a formal audit by other developers. However, this process may take from several weeks to several months, depending on the scale of any corrections.
After final finalization, the code will be incorporated into the main Litecoin code base. Then it will be prepared for the work of node operators and miners. As added in the foundation’s announcement, the community itself will decide how quickly MWEB will be activated in the LTC blockchain.
What does MWEB bring?
The MimbleWimble test network was launched in October 2020, and the code was tested for five months.
Updating the block and incorporating the MimbleWimble protocol into the network will improve the key features that Litecoin lacks today. It will certainly increase the privacy of the cryptocurrency and improve its scalability. The founder of Litecoin, Charlie Lee, has been focusing on the scalability and privacy of his project for several years. He considers this to be a key stage in the evolution of LTC.
MimbleWimble was established in August 2016. It all started when a user with the nickname “majorplayer” described his idea for a new protocol on the IRC channel as a private and scalable upgrade for Bitcoin. This was noticed by a group of developers who became deeply interested in the project. Among them was, among others Andrew Poelstra from BlockStream, who prepared full documentation for the new protocol in 2017. Initially, it was supposed to be a Bitcoin sidechain. BTC restrictions, however, prompted developers to create their own cryptocurrency – Grin.
But where does such a surprising name come from? It is a protocol that was named after a spell that all fans of the Harry Potter novels know. Thanks to this relatively new technology, which was previously used in the Grin and Beam cryptocurrencies, the network allows senders to encrypt transactions using the so-called “Dazzling factors”. This greatly improves the privacy of the blockchain while increasing its scalability.
