- Litecoin (LTC-USD) is getting ready for its newest upgrade on Thursday, May 19
- The MimbleWimble (MWEB) upgrade will turn the Litecoin crypto into a more fungible, private currency
- Privacy coins like Monero (XMR-USD) and Zcash (ZEC-USD) have been hot investments in recent weeks
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The Litecoin crypto is set for one of its biggest upgrades yet. After much delay and plenty of hype, developers say they are ready to unveil the MimbleWimble upgrade. This news sees Litecoin stepping into a crypto sub-industry that has performed well recently. As a result, investors may soon see an LTC boom.
After a rough couple of weeks, it looks like investors are finally turning their attention back to network growth. Projects are starting to get back on track with their upgrades — and Litecoin is no exception. In fact, investors have been tracking its new upgrade in particular for a while.
The MWEB rollout will see Litecoin turn into more of a privacy coin. Essentially, MimbleWimble uses a number of different cryptographic protocols meant to obfuscate the sender and receiver of a given transaction. In essence, it turns the LTC coin into a fungible currency.
Think of non-fungible cryptos like snowflakes; each has a unique pattern, meaning two snowflakes can be easily told apart from one another. Fungible tokens don’t have distinct features to differentiate one coin from another. This makes it nearly impossible to track the movement of specific funds, allowing for far greater privacy for the end user.
This privacy factor is perhaps the most exciting part of the MimbleWimble upgrade. However, there’s another important element to the upgrade: On-chain security. The MimbleWimble protocol uses discrete logarithms, which are very difficult to solve. This will help better secure the Litecoin chain.
Litecoin Crypto Becomes Fungible, Joins Privacy Coins
With an estimated release of May 19, investors are on the verge of the biggest Litecoin crypto catalyst of the year thus far. MimbleWimble has been in development for over two years now, making it one of the LTC developers’ biggest projects.
By adding the privacy factor to LTC, the coin will join a booming privacy coin market. Indeed, coins like Monero and Zcash — both of which prioritize untraceable transactions — have been trading at exceptionally high volumes. Up until last week, these two coins enjoyed some of the largest gains across the market this year.
There is a catch to the MWEB upgrade, though — one that may divide investors. Litecoin founder Charlie Lee says the MWEB upgrade will be optional for platforms. “Exchanges, for example, would not have to work with the MWEB side of things, they can just work with the transparent Litecoin blockchain itself,” Lee says.
Some users like this news, as it means criminals will have a harder time moving assets through the LTC chain than other privacy chains. However, privacy coin diehards might have reservations about using a chain that’s not entirely opaque.
While investors wait on the MWEB upgrade to take shape, the Litecoin crypto continues to recover from recent market bearishness. Prices are down by 4% for the past 24 hours.
On the date of publication, Brenden Rearick did not hold (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, subject to the InvestorPlace.com Publishing Guidelines.