Developer David Burkett has shared an update on his work to implement Mimblewimble on Litecoin. The upcoming feature will introduce optionally private transactions for LTC users.

This month, Burkett focused on implementing Initial Block Downloads. Whereas most other blockchains require full nodes to download several gigabytes of data related to past transactions, Litecoin’s implementation of Mimblewimble requires much less data. Burkett explains:

“The biggest innovation behind mimblewimble is that, in order to verify the chain, you just need to know … the “chain state.” … Since we don’t want to require everyone to download all old mimblewimble blocks, or to know about all old, spent outputs, we use a different structure to commit to the transactions.”

Mimblewimble is technically a blockchain protocol, not a blockchain in itself. This dynamic allows projects like Litecoin to integrate Mimblewimble with their own existing blockchain fairly easily.

David Burkett is also working on Grin++, a client for another Mimblewimble coin. Grin++ this month required an “enormous amount of effort,” Burkett says, which caused delays in his Litecoin work. Burkett says that Grin++ is now in maintenance mode and that this should be “the last time it interferes with Litecoin progress.”

Litecoin began developing its Mimblewimble implementation in January. Burkett’s previous update suggested that Mimblewimble’s testnet launch would take place in mid-September. However, this month’s news pushes the testnet launch to the end of September. Burkett has not estimated a date for a mainnet launch, which would deliver private transactions to general users.

Burkett notes that with “projects this large, things rarely go exactly as planned.” He plans to spend the extra time on code cleanup, testing, and documentation, all of which will improve the final product.

Though Litecoin’s Mimblewimble privacy features are nearing completion, the project is short on funding, according to Burkett:

Over 1,000 LTC (about $48,000) has been donated to the project so far. Community members have donated 500 LTC independently, and Litecoin leader Charlie Lee has matched those donations with another 500 LTC. The project aims to raise $72,000 in total.

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