While everyone’s looking forward to Litecoin’s MimbleWimble upgrade, could it be that the market now prefers yield over privacy instead?
Litecoin’s MimbleWimble Extension Blocks (MWEB) upgrade has been under development for well over 2 years now. However, recent developments suggest that it may finally see the light of the day in January 2022.
Robbie Coleman, Litecoin Foundation’s Creative Director tweeted last week that MWEB is in the final code review stage. Later on Jan 11, 2022, Litecoin’s official website released a MimbleWimble December recap update penned by none other than the lead developer David Burkett himself. As per him, if everything goes as planned, which he sounded quite optimistic about, the first release will be created this month itself.
What’s this MimbleWimble all about?
MWEB is a feature upgrade that modifies how transactions are structured and stored on a blockchain, resulting in improved scalability and higher privacy. Transactions are recorded in a more compact manner, leading to quicker download, synchronization, and verification of the blockchain data.
Although the block verifications happen like normal, since the details of transactions contained therein aren’t revealed, there’s no feasible way of linking each input with its corresponding output. Such process obfuscation delivers a higher degree of privacy as its by-product.
Additionally, when this aspect will combine with the resulting fungibility, making every LTC indistinguishable from others, the cryptocurrency will have all the features of proper money.
Can this upgrade possibly pull LTC out of its price slump?
If we look at the LTC/USD daily chart below, the crypto coin has been in a bearish market since Nov 2021. The RSI is also in the oversold territory. However, MACD is just about touching the signal line, making a push upwards, offering a ray of hope to the bulls.
LTC/USD Daily Chart. Source: TradingView
It won’t be wrong to state that LTC has fallen out of favour with investors over a period of time. We won’t dig deeper into why this has happened, but MWEB taking so long to implement hasn’t helped matters either. Having said that, supporters of the cryptocurrency are hopeful that the upgrade will work as a catalyst for its price, possibly returning it back to its glorious $350+ days.
As per the popular Twitter handle @TheFalconTrades, there’s a definite reversal on the cards, so much so that they talk about retiring on the expected LTC pump of 2022!
Nonetheless, if we take a quick look at the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market cap right now, it would be clear that investors are increasingly opting for yield over privacy these days. Only time will tell how the MWEB upgrade plays out for Litecoin, and whether it will make a noteworthy comeback or not.
