Announced more than 2 years ago for one of the oldest cryptocurrencies, Litecoin, the upgrade is finally here. But the fruit did not fully promise the flowers. The result of this MimbleWimble (MWEB) pledge is the confidentiality of transactions, which does not allow the exchange to apply anti-money laundering rules. Binance decided to no longer support Litecoin-related transactions and launched it with the “MWEB” feature.
The upgrade no one wants
Litecoin developers on May 20 launched the MimbleWimble (MWEB) protocol that gives users the option to keep their transactions private. Thus transactional data can be hidden while accelerating the transaction itself.
On June 13, Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, announced that it will no longer support trades initiated from the new Litecoin feature.
Already on June 8, many South Korean exchanges removed Litecoin from the coins traded on their platforms. These include Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone, Korbit, and Gopax.
The Upbit exchange gave the reasons for this withdrawal written on the subject: “ The optional non-disclosure feature of transaction information, which is included in this network upgrade, is an anonymous transmission technology under the Specific Financial Information Act. »
Binance has not yet considered completely removing Litecoin from the platform. Rather, she says that Any LTC deposit made with Binance through the MWEB feature will not be received or returned, as we cannot verify the sender’s address, resulting in direct loss of funds. “. These are therefore transactions related to MWEB functionality only. As Binance’s announcement will also point out, what creates a problem is the use of this function which does not allow it to collect information on the sender compared to Litecoin which, at the base, is not a privacy coin like monero or zcash. For these coins, in fact, Binance continues to accept its exchanges through its platform.
Binance in the hot seat
If the largest stock exchange, before all the others, responded this way in the United States, it is among other things because everything shows that it is in the crosshairs of the American authorities. Last week, for example, the SEC opened an investigation against it to determine whether the ICO of BNB tokens in 2017 replaced securities sales that should therefore be registered with the SEC. In the same week, the exchange addressed allegations from Reuters that Binance acted as a hub for money laundering of all kinds of crimes, from the Russian drug mafia to North Korean cybercrime.
The MimbleWimble upgrade does not seem to be the promised success. While Litecoin is thought to be making it more attractive, this upgrade has led to a gradual quarantine of the framework currency. We are entitled to expect from the developers to revise the extension.
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Luc Jose Adjinacou
Far from dampening my enthusiasm, an unsuccessful investment in cryptocurrency in 2017 only increased my enthusiasm. So I decided to study and understand the blockchain and its many uses and put forward my pen information related to this ecosystem.
