Thread by @SatoshiLite

1/ Just want to set the record straight.

In the 8 years history of Litecoin, we've only had a handful of core developers working on Litecoin Core.

At various points in time, it's been me, @wtogami, @thrasher_au, @shaolinfry, @TheRealXinxi, and @loshan1212.

2/ It's no secret that we have purposefully kept Litecoin's code very close to Bitcoin's code. Since we are mostly just merging in Bitcoin changes, we only need a lead Litecoin Core developer doing the merges and the rest of us help with code reviews, testing, and gitian builds.

3/ Adrian Gallagher (AKA thrasher) is leading Litecoin Core development right now and has been for a few years now. You may not know Adrian well as he is not on Twitter much, but he is awesome. He quietly has been working hard behind the scenes on Litecoin Core development. 👍

4/ Recently there's been a lot of FUD about Litecoin having no code commits in 2019. When you look at Litecoin GitHub (github.com/litecoin-proje…), it would seem like we did no work in 2019. There are actually 2 reasons why this is the case even though we have been developing.

5/ First reason is Litecoin releases lag Bitcoin releases by a few months. So when we do a release, we are releasing code that's been released in Bitcoin months ago.

We actually did release Litecoin Core 0.17.1 May of this year: blog.litecoin.org/litecoin-core-…

6/ But the code that was released was mostly written in 2018. The interesting thing about GitHub is that it keeps the commit the same in terms of who wrote it and when it was committed to the code base. So Bitcoin developers are credited for their work in the Litecoin code base.

7/ What this means in practice is that although we did work on and release the latest Litecoin Core in May of 2019, if you look at GitHub, most of the commits where done in 2018. So it would seem like Litecoin developers took the year off.

8/ Second reason is we don't work on the master branch of the main project. It's generally not good dev practice to check in non-release code into the master branch. This is because if someone builds from source from master branch, they might get a broken build and that's bad.

9/ The reality is that Adrian has been actively working on Litecoin Core release 0.18.1 on his personal branch here: github.com/thrasher-/lite…

When we release 0.18.1, Adrian will merge his branch into master. When that happens, it would all of a sudden add all the 2019 commits. 😲

10/ This is how Litecoin Core development has functioned for years. We even had the same FUD last year! Someone looked at our master branch last year and claimed that Litecoin stopped developing in 2018. And I bet even after this explanation, we will have people confused in 2020.

11/ I will address the progress on MimbleWimble (MW) and Confidential Transactions (CT). When I announced that I will start working on MW, someone asked me for an ETA. And I responded with should be sometime 2019.

https://twitter.com/SatoshiLite/status/1089938859566063616

12/ As the year went by, I got sidetracked with a ton of other things that needed my attention. These included Litecoin Foundation's work on adoption and awareness: Mammoth Film Festival, Glory Kickboxing, Feel the Kpop concert, Flexa SPEDN support, the Miami Dolphins, and more!

13/ Litecoin Foundation's purpose is 2-fold: work on Litecoin adoption and work on development for Litecoin. For the past months, I believed adoption and awareness was a more important focus for me than development. But I do agree that both are just as important in the long run.

14/ I dropped the ball on MW/CT. For that, I apologize. But it's not fair at all to say that I strung people along and tricked them. Except for the initial tweet, I haven't said 2019. When asked, I have only said things are moving slowly and will give an update when there is one.

15/ That said, I believe it's time now for me to shift focus from adoption back to development. I still think fungibility is extremely important and I will get the ball rolling on MW/CT again. This time, I won't make any promises on dates. 😀

16/ Last thing I want to add is that I will work on better communication with the community and give more frequent updates on things.