After a few weeks of back-and-forth dialogue with several Litecoin mining pools, the necessary 75% miner signaling threshold required for Litecoin’s MWEB activation has finally been met. As a result, the long awaited MWEB upgrade will finally go live on the Litecoin network two weeks from now. MWEB will provide Litecoin users the option of sending “confidential” Litecoin transactions, in which the amount being sent is only known between the sender and receiver, as well as the benefit of having private address balances.
Essentially, the use of this technology is comparable to the modern-day shopper at a grocery store who has their wallet closed and stored away either in their purse, front or back pocket, and away from sight of fellow shoppers — a basic function we all tend to naturally perform to avoid tempting malicious bystanders. Surprisingly, at the moment, the vast majority of cryptocurrencies (most of the ones you’ve heard about) can be compared to you being at the supermarket and walking around with your wallet open, displaying your holdings to anyone that shows interest. Not to mention, all transaction amounts are publicly viewable and people you’ve never met in your life know how much you spend. Can you imagine a company having to publicly display how much it pays each employee, and each employee having the ability to analyze how much their co-workers make, or for that matter, others knowing how much you earn? To many, this could be considered highly unethical.
After a few years of work, it’s exciting to say that MWEB is finally right around the corner and will be activated on Litecoin this month — changing the entire crypto landscape as we know it. The question to ask is, just how impactful can we expect this upgrade to become?
Put simply, Litecoin will become the most widely accessible cryptocurrency with improved fungibility and confidentiality features.
Litecoin, which was created in 2011 and is the longest-persisting altcoin (having turned 10 years old this past year), has had a multi-year head start compared to other cryptocurrencies in regards to adoption. Litecoin is available on the vast majority of cryptocurrency exchanges, trading platforms, crypto ATM’s, etc. Not to mention, due to its fair initial distribution and non-security like nature, has been considered to be one of the “safe” cryptocurrencies for institutions to adopt in the United States in regards to its current regulatory framework.
Because of this high liquidity and availability, many traders and transactors use Litecoin for sending funds from one platform to another, along with its low fees (which are currently much lower than Bitcoin/Ethereum/Dogecoin, etc.). As a result of these differentiating factors, this places Litecoin in a unique position.
Availability on nearly every global exchange
Very competitive fees for a hash-dominant coin (cheaper than Dogecoin), making it very convenient for day-to-day transacting.
And now, most importantly
3. The most fungible cryptocurrency with added confidentiality features that holds this level of accessibility.
In plain language, this means Litecoin will become the *easiest* way to transact in a confidential manner.
For example, if Tesla wanted to pay its employees with the Bitcoin it owns, it’d make more sense to do it via Litecoin’s MWEB to protect the classified company-employee information. If then needed, amounts could later be transferred to other cryptocurrencies, taking into consideration the resulting loss of that confidentiality that would occur if deciding to opt-out of Litecoin’s MWEB. If MicroStrategy were to pay a business partner with a percent of its Bitcoin holdings, competitors would be able to track these payments and see how much money sits not just in MicroStrategy’s address, but their trading partner as well (chain analysis companies have become increasingly better at detecting which address may belong to who). If you went to Starbucks and decided to pay with crypto, they’d now be able to see how much money you hold in your address. Does it make sense for a McDonalds, a Macy’s, a Starbucks, etc. to see how much money you have in your bank account simply because you swiped your debit card at their store?
At the moment, this is simply not an effective way to be transacting — and as explained earlier, being at the store and walking around with an open wallet is not a sound practice. It could quickly turn into a safety issue. In the Bitcoin whitepaper, Satoshi Nakamoto states
“The traditional banking model achieves a level of privacy by limiting access to information to the parties involved and the trusted third party. The necessity to announce all transactions publicly precludes this method…”
In our modern world, privacy plays an active role in our daily lives. Each time we transact at the store, only the payer and recipient (and payment company /banks, [which are removed from the equation in cryptocurrencies such as Litecoin]), know how much is being sent. When receiving your pay-stub, the information is typically confidential. Not to mention, you probably don’t go around telling everyone how much you spent on Amazon last month and mentioning every single product you purchased.
To be fair, some people do enjoy being public about their transacting history, but also, it’s fair to preserve the right to confidentiality for those who don’t. This is very similar to Venmo’s option to broadcast a “public” transaction (you can let your friends know how much you’re paying who), or turn it off so random people can’t eavesdrop. At the moment, payments crypto’s such as Bitcoin, Dogecoin and BCash only hold the “public” option. In a sense, Litecoin will be working similarly to Venmo with the option for both.
With the addition of MWEB to Litecoin, this financial soundness is finally arriving to one of the longest existing and traded cryptocurrencies on the market — and as a result, will change the crypto space as we know it. A more ethical solution that has been missing will finally be put in place. This isn’t about memes, rockets, speculation, or play — this is actual hard, world-changing innovation that is needed now and hundreds of millions of people could immediately benefit from.
Due to overwhelming support from the Litecoin community, MWEB will be going live on Litecoin this month. After the 10+ ongoing years Litecoin has worked flawlessly for, Litecoin’s main goal has been quite evident— to be an all-around excellent form of money. After all of these years, this intense focus has been maintained and it still hasn’t deviated from that goal (maybe that’s why it’s been so successful?). The key feature that was missing from cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin was confidentiality and now, it’ll finally be arriving to its little brother. Historically, Litecoin has been considered to be one of the cryptocurrencies with the soundest principles and surprisingly, it’s about to get sound-er. The biggest update in Litecoin’s history is happening now and if you’re here, you’re a part of it. Stay tuned for launch!
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