Litecoin founder explains why MimbleWimble’s privacy won’t help criminals

Litecoin founder Charlie Lee isn’t involved over MimbleWimble aiding cash launderers or a possible regulatory backlash over its new privateness options.

Litecoin isn’t as non-public as you assume

The MimbleWimble protocol brings scaling by compacting historical past to make information extra manageable and faster to course of and confirm.

It additionally makes use of cryptographic processes to encrypt block inputs and outputs. This implies blocks get verified within the ordinary method, however an outsider can not establish which inputs and outputs of a block belong to a selected deal with.

Lee says this encryption course of is critical to present Litecoin fungibility. In different phrases, by making each $LTC the identical, then each $LTC is handled the identical, identical to money.

A possible downside arises in criminals utilizing Litecoin to cover their actions. In addressing that concern, Lee mentioned monetary privateness is a human proper. And in any case, he’s assured that regulators received’t kick up a fuss as MimbleWimble is an optionally available function.

“So we’re doing this as an optionally available opt-in to utilizing MWEB. So exchanges, for instance, wouldn’t should work with the MWEB aspect of issues, they will simply work with the clear Litecoin blockchain itself.”

When pushed additional on the contradiction of a clear chain with anonymity, Lee mentioned MimbleWimble doesn’t present “excellent anonymity.” As an alternative, its main purpose is to present a level of monetary privateness by hiding quantities held. This doesn’t cease exchanges figuring out your data when depositing with them.

“Hiding the quantity I believe is necessary for monetary privateness. It doesn’t make it simpler for folks, for criminals or nefarious folks to launder cash by Litecoin.”

Why did MimbleWimble take so lengthy to roll out?

Speak of the Litecoin MimbleWimble improve has been ongoing since 2019. However, after years within the making, the Litecoin Foundation introduced its launch on the finish of January.

One of many first adjustments to occur is to rename the protocol extension to MWEB, which Lee mentioned stands for MimbleWimble Extension Block.

In explaining why MWEB took so lengthy to finish, Lee mentioned Litecoin is a multi-billion greenback foreign money that individuals use on daily basis. The precedence was at all times to make sure the community stayed up and operating, which meant taking a cautious strategy.

“We wish to take issues gradual, we wish to ensure that the improve goes easily. We don’t wish to take pointless dangers or trigger the community to go down or something that may trigger issues with folks’s cash.”

On the MWEB launch, $LTC hit an +8% peak earlier than a slight retracement to shut Tuesday at $115. The considerably subdued transfer is probably going as a consequence of broader market pressures, which noticed Bitcoin up simply +2% over the identical interval.