|

News - Archive

Charlie Lee On MimbleWimble: It’s Less About Privacy And More About Fungibility

Author

Jide Idowu

Tags

Reading time

2 mins
Last update

Author

Jide Idowu

Tags

Category

News - Archive

Reading time

2 mins
Last update

Author

Jide Idowu

Tags

Reading time

2 mins
Last update


What is Litecoin

Join our growing community

During a new episode of Grin Talk, Charlie Lee the founder of Litecoin (LTC) talked about MimbleWimble and how they want to implement it on the Litecoin network. 

He has also mentioned that they see this implementation less about privacy and more about fungibility. 

Charlie Lee on MimbleWimble and Litecoin

Charlie Lee started this conversation by saying that most of the crypto enthusiasts believed that Bitcoin (BTC) was a private cryptocurrency. 

However, they eventually realized that it was a cryptocurrency that works with pseudonymous. This is why other digital assets were created, including Monero (XMR). 

Charlie Lee said that in order for Bitcoin and Litecoin to be useful money they have to be fungible. 

About it, he said:

“I see it less about privacy and more about fungibility. In order for Bitcoin and Litecoin to be useful money, they have to be fungible. Whichever Bitcoin or Litecoin you spend should be equal to any other coin you have.”

He went on saying that when a person makes a purchase, they do not have to think which banknote they use according to what happened with it before. They are exactly the same to merchants.  

Mr. Lee has also mentioned that privacy is a requirement for fungibility because it is possible to censor different transactions. 

Litecoin will be using MimbleWimble through extension blocks. This is an optional feature rather than an obligatory one. Those users that want to have fungibility can send the LTC to the extension block that will be based on MimbleWimble to make the funds fungible. 

Charlie Lee has also addressed the issue related to exchanges not accepting Litecoin with privacy features. According to him, exchanges will be working with the main chain and they will not have to deal with a fully private cryptocurrency. 

The founder of Litecoin stated that they selected MimbleWimble instead of other solutions because it allows cryptocurrencies to gain privacy without sacrificing scalability. Thus, this is a win-win situation for Litecoin, adding privacy without affecting scalability. 

By using extension blocks it is possible for Litecoin to upgrade the network through a soft-fork rather than doing and implementing a hard fork. 

He finally said that Litecoin has large liquidity in different exchanges and this is very positive for implementing privacy features on this digital asset. Other cryptocurrencies that are offering privacy features had to create liquidity and new markets for them to be successful, which could take a long time. 

https://youtu.be/J37rUzQZ64k

Jide Idowu

About the Author

Cryptocurrency freelance writer. Many hours dedicated to researching on cryptocurrencies, the blockchain, and so on has increased my experience in this field.