Privacy on the Silver Screen: Litecoin’s Ground-Breaking MWEB Protocol

If you’ve been keeping up with Litecoin, you know that LitVM is on an unrelenting mission to become the most powerful and expansive technological development to date in the evolution of digital silver. That’s why LitVM will be turning back the clocks today: in recognition of a profound technical upgrade from Litecoin’s past that remains its most groundbreaking innovation thus far.

Here’s to MWEB: Litecoin’s big move to equip its network with major privacy features — and all while enhancing overall scalability.

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MWEB: Potent Privacy Protections for Web3’s High-Performance Digital Currency

Officially launched on May 19, 2022 via Litecoin Core 0.21.2, Litecoin’s MimbleWimble Extension Block (MWEB) is a protocol upgrade that leverages MimbleWimble extension blocks to avail key privacy features to transacting users. With optional privacy on board, Litecoin is more prepared than ever before to take on its role as a medium of exchange for daily transactions. Now, time to break down the tech.

In technical terms, MWEB is not a separate sidechain, per se. Rather, it is a parallel private blockchain within each Litecoin block that is secured by the same miners that secure and validate transactions on the Litecoin main chain. The only difference: transactions recorded in extension blocks are confidential — that is, send and receipt amounts remain hidden. To complement MimbleWimble extension blocks, the system also utilizes native CoinJoin mixing functionality and stealth addresses, allowing users to reuse the same address several times while maintaining a private transaction history. By hiding LTC amounts and preventing a single user’s transactions from being linked to one another, MWEB dramatically improves fungibility without sacrificing security.

To add further benefit, MWEB efficiently prunes data from past transactions, making data storage more efficient and ultimately laying the foundation for a more scalable blockchain. Privacy and scalability together? That’s a win-win you won’t hear about anywhere else.

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Picking Up Traction: MWEB By the Numbers

Already, the MWEB protocol has made substantial progress on adoption, with more than 90% of Litecoin miners and nodes contributing to its security. All the while, usership continues to soar. Users have demonstrated both significant trust in MWEB and demand for on-chain privacy in general, locking more than 150,000 LTC — upwards of $12M — into the MWEB layer as of June 2025. At present, MWEB’s LTC balance stands at an all-time high and has been trending upward with no end in sight all year long. Litecoin’s privacy layer appears to be garnering interest from both within and beyond the Litecoin ecosystem, as demand continues to grow.

One likely explanation for the growth in demand is that in the world of on-chain privacy, demand begets more demand. As a privacy layer, the degree to which MWEB confers privacy is highly correlated to the volume of capital that flows into and remains in MWEB. The larger the amount of LTC in MWEB at any given moment, the more difficult it is to associate an LTC transaction that is sent from the Litecoin main chain into MWEB with a corresponding LTC transaction that is sent back from MWEB to the Litecoin main chain. For that reason, the adoption of MWEB appears to be taking place with increasing momentum, as each new user and LTC inflow generates a higher degree of privacy for the next, and so on.

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The Significance of MWEB for Litecoin

As a technology founded on default transparency, blockchain amplifies challenges related to financial privacy — a longstanding individual right that already faces a host of threats in the digital world. While blockchain possesses great potential to provide a host of benefits to individuals and organizations, many advocates for Web3 technologies continue to urge developers to build user-friendly privacy solutions. Ultimately, Web3 ecosystems will struggle to achieve meaningful adoption in the event opt-in privacy cannot be supported. On this prerogative, Litecoin is stepping up to provide a powerful solution not only for its users, but for other Web3 ecosystem community members looking to make the jump, and even for those looking to dip their toes into Web3 for the first time.

MWEB has also had a profound impact on Litecoin’s reputation and public standing. As an original technical solution, MWEB has thrust Litecoin into the Web3 limelight as a force to be reckoned with in both the high-performance sound money and on-chain privacy scenes. Having already demonstrated a steadfast commitment to decentralization, trust-minimized architecture, and sound money principles, Litecoin’s MWEB has broken major ground in elevating the Litecoin network beyond its public association as a mere testing ground for Bitcoin. With a robust user base underneath it, MWEB has solidified Litecoin’s independence, unique mission, and potential to innovate as a standalone pioneer in the on-chain domain.

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MWEB Versus Other On-Chain Privacy Solutions

Relative to other leading on-chain privacy solutions, MWEB stands alone as a unique opt-in privacy technology that primarily focuses on serving daily transactions. Monero has long played the role of crypto’s hardcore privacy coin, where privacy is default and no other options exist. For reporting, compliance, and basic daily transactions, Monero is not a primary player. Meanwhile, Zcash’s approach to optional privacy mirrors that of MWEB, however MWEB’s data pruning gives Litecoin a scalability edge over Zcash’s shielded pool approach.

Ultimately, MWEB takes a middle path that improves fungibility while prioritizing scalability and remaining regulation-friendly, thereby offering LTC the best path to gaining adoption as a mainstream medium of exchange for daily transactions.

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Getting Started with MWEB

Now, some really good news. There’s no need to wait — Web3 users can restore and maintain their on-chain privacy today, simply by getting started with one of several accessible wallets. After all, what good is privacy if it’s not simple, practical, and low-maintenance? A simplified, smooth user experience is the ultimate mission driving both Litecoin and LitVM forward, after all.

Getting started with MWEB is just one wallet download away.

• Cake Wallet: As the first multi-chain wallet to support MWEB following its October 2024 integration, Cake Wallet remains a top choice for Litecoin users.
• Litecoin Core: With full node security and detailed MWEB support, Litecoin Core is perfect for technicians and security maxis. Just ensure you have v0.21.3 or later.
• Electrum LTC: A lightweight option that supports MWEB features such as coin control without downloading the entire blockchain.

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The Litecoin Innovation That Lies Ahead

Users who want to take ownership for their own financial privacy in the on-chain space will surely find MWEB to be a valuable cog in their digital asset toolkit. But as MWEB continues to march forward as both a resounding technical achievement and a practical privacy solution, one thing is for certain: Litecoin innovation will not stop there.

MimbleWimble extension blocks demonstrated the power and utility of exploring alternative solutions to enhance user experience, provide new services, and improve scalability. That’s why LitVM is proud to be hard at work accelerating Litecoin’s path of innovation demonstrated by MWEB.

LitVM’s EVM-compatible chain is designed to support an entire ecosystem of Litecoin-native applications including DeFi, RWAs, and NFTs, while tapping into Polygon’s cutting-edge AggLayer technology to ensure deep liquidity and connect Litecoin to the rest of the Web3 landscape. Operating beyond the limitations of a siloed Layer 1 environment will mark the next frontier for Litecoin. On this mission, LitVM is dedicated to leading Litecoin forward into its next chapter of growth, innovation, and adoption. And, of course, LitVM will continue Litecoin’s tradition of offering innovative privacy-preserving features built for the modern Web3 era.