Thread by @lite_hause

*What is Litecoin's "MWEB?"*
Intro:
1) #Litecoin is closely approaching its second major deviation from Bitcoin--the first being Litecoin's implementation of SegWit prior to BTC in '17 and, the second being #MWEB (Mimblewimble Extension Blocks), which is nearing its release.

2) MWEB is the *largest* upgrade to the Litecoin network there's ever been, headed not by BTC devs but, rather by Grin ++ (an MW protocol) developer @DavidBurkett38.

MWEB is set out to improve two key features lacking from Bitcoin and Litecoin--fungibility and privacy.

3) "Fungibility", what's that? It's one unit of account being exactly equal to another. E.g. One intact dollar bill is equivalent to another $1 bill, they're directly interchangeable. One oz. of gold is equal to another oz. of gold, etc. "But wait, isn't 1 LTC/BTC = 1 LTC/BTC"?

4) From a purely monetary perspective, yes, 0.5 LTC = 0.5 LTC, and 1 BTC = 1 BTC, but---what we're missing here is, with the way Bitcoin and Litecoin are currently designed, you can *also* track the history of each of those coins. Each coin carries traces of where they've been.

5) In this sense, a freshly mined LTC or BTC could be said to be untarnished due to their absence of history, but on the other hand, a coin that was mined in 2012 and has history of being involved in a nefarious transaction in 2014 carries that weight with it for its entire life.

6) Now, you can see why one Litecoin may not be exactly equal to one Litecoin.

In reality, the history of a coin shouldn't matter. It's probable that the new owner of a coin that was mined in 2012 has nothing to do with the previous owner who might've been a malicious hacker.

7) Unfortunately, that's not the case, though. As some exchanges and government's, with the help of chain analysis groups have taken an active stance in being hostile against these tainted coins, regardless of how well-intended the current owner is.

8) This makes no sense, as an estimated 80%+ of all dollar bills in circulation contain traces of cocaine on them and continue being used as a valid and equal form of money, regardless of what the previous owner might've done with them.

MWEB improves this aspect to BTC/LTC

9) One of MWEB's most significant strengths is concealing transaction amounts. "Why would I want to do that?"
Let's just say it's not wise practice to consistently transact, letting the world know how much money you're sending. Ethics play a large role in this.

10) Imagine a company paying its employees in crypto and one employee analyzing that employee B is being sent more coins than employee A. Or, imagine that a LTC address becomes linked to an identity and now everyone sees how much money that person sends on the daily.

11) If we want Litecoin and Bitcoin to reach their full potential as being actual, sound money for transactions and payments, one can see that basic privacy is *essential*. To a great extent, our traditional financial system upholds privacy as well.

MWEB improves this.

12) Although I've barely scratched the surface of MWEB's capabilities (there's a lot to completely unpackage), there are a lot of other aspects to MWEB that are quite interesting as well, such as stealth addresses (someone receiving payments for a product can post an address...

13) and people sending payments to that address can do so without seeing which other people have sent money to that address as well. Third parties learn nothing. Stealth addresses will be present in the form of MingleJingle (improved version)

14) Not to mention, scaling benefits. Being an extension block, Litecoin's transaction throughput will expand.

Although MWEB contains many other, cool features, the need for basic privacy is obvious. Litecoin's MWEB will help improve many aspects, but the battle for

15) improved user privacy is never ending and will continue being worked upon for decades to come. MWEB is an excellent initiation and a strong step in the right direction.

Also, Litecoin's MWEB is opt-in and thus, users don't *have to* use it if they won't want.

16) Exchanges and wallets don't *have to* integrate MWEB either, although it'd be highly recommended so users can gain access to these added benefits of protecting user data for everyday transacting.

17) At the moment, MWEB has been code complete for a few months already and is undergoing final auditing, which could be finished any day now. The next step would be MWEB's release and thus, Litecoin's community signaling for it.

End) With MWEB, Litecoin will become the most cash-like cryptocurrency in the space, putting a strong foot forward in achieving its goal towards being *the* ideal cryptocurrency for payments and transactions.

Congratulations to everyone who helped make this a possibility! 🔥🔥