On March 1, David Burkett, a programmer working on cryptocurrencies Grin (Smile) and Litecoin (LTC), estimated that privacy protocol Mimblewimble volition encounter a Litecoin testnet release before the end of summer.

In an update to the Mimblewimble (MW) progress thread on Litecointalk.io, Burkett hesitantly predicts that MW will be launched on testnet before September.

"I've so far been very hesitant to give exact dates on when things should exist finished, because writing blockchain software is hard, time-consuming, and unpredictable at times. I didn't want artificial deadlines to force us to rush through parts of the code and innovate defects or security vulnerabilities. Having said that, I think it's finally time to commit to the first major consequence."

David anticipates that the testnet launch will include all transaction validation and block rules, basic peer-to-peer messaging functionality, syncing, transaction pool, and "the ability to mine blocks."

Burkett emphasizes that the version will not include a usable graphical interface wallet, and expects that transactions will need to be created manually.

Burket publishes Litecoin Comeback Proposal

The developer has also posted a Litecoin Improvement Proposal to Github, which proposes one-sided MW transactions and includes fixes for bugs discovered since his previous proposal. Despite the progress, David states that there is yet "a lot more than to exercise."

"I've made some modifications to the original kernel pattern to support the ability to soft-fork in new features in the future. I've as well started to build out the merkle mount ranges (MMRs), which are a data structure nosotros use to commit to kernels & outputs. Once the MMR logic is finished, I should be able to get back to the block validation logic."

Litecoin partners with Burkett in 2022

During September 2022, The Litecoin Project appear that it had commissioned David Burkett of Grin++ to implement MW support for the Litecoin network. The protocol change was intended to bolster Litecoin'south privacy, with MW slated to facilitate confidential transactions.

MW was revealed to the earth in August 2022 when an individual interim nether the moniker Tom Elvis Jedusor posted the original MimbleWimble white to paper to a Bitcoin research aqueduct. The presumed author has not posted since.

The protocol is intended to enhance blockchain privacy, scalability, and fungibility. Through a process called CoinJoin, multiple MW transactions are combined into 1 transaction. Every bit such, MW blocks consist of a list of all input, output, and signature information — obscuring the transaction data for whatsoever third-political party observers.

While originally envisaged as an upgrade or sidechain to Bitcoin, MW was beginning implemented in Grin++, which was launched during January 2022.