Litecoin project developers begin work on MimbleWimble implementation.

The Litecoin project announced that it will be working with Grin++ developer David Burkett to add MimbleWimble support to the Litecoin network. Charlie Lee, Litecoin founder and Executive Director of the Litecoin Foundation, made the following announcement via his Twitter:

MimbleWimble progress updates: @davidburkett38The main developer of Grin++ is currently @ecurrencyhodler And I’m all about design. We have been refining the mechanism for putting LTC into and out of MW/EB. We also figured out a clean way to handle MW fees.

MimbleWimble (MW) is a protocol change that brings several benefits, most notably enabling confidential transactions (CTs) and non-interactive coin joins. Those who choose to use MW on Litecoin hide their transaction value and mix it with other network participants, making it difficult for third parties to track and record their activity.

Grin++ is a fork of Grin, the original MimbleWimble protocol. According to the project github, there is a greater focus on security, speed, reliability, modularity, and scalability along with the main upstream branch.

MW will provide a more comprehensive solution to your mold problem than CT alone. This is what Lee sees as the only sound currency asset missing from Bitcoin and Litecoin. Jumping into MW, the team appears to be trying to kill two birds with one stone, leveraging expansion blocks (EBs) could also increase network capacity, although it’s unclear how high the team will set this.

Burkett has been proactive in providing services through conversations about slow MW progress. He thanked Lee for the announcement and said he looked forward to working together to ensure financial privacy for everyone. He went on to write his own blog post, making his intentions behind the collaboration clear.

I’m just a cryptocurrency anarchist who spends my spare time developing alternative nodes and wallets for Grin. My ultimate goal is financial privacy for everyone and I love nothing more than taking a quick look at Bitcoin itself. Adding MW to Litecoin seemed like a natural next step.

In return for Burkett’s work, Lee donated 1.5 BTC to the Grin++ security audit as a show of support and appreciation for the developers who pioneered the MimbleWimble protocol.