Confidential Transactions Could Add Anonymity to Litecoin

Reclaiming the Right to Privacy

Bitcoin and litecoin are the OGs of cryptocurrencies, the latter essentially a BTC clone. This means that features that work on the litecoin network will often work on bitcoin and vice versa. Segwit and Lightning Network, for example, made their litecoin debut. This week it was announced that progress has been made in verifying confidential transactions in an update released by Coinjoin developer Greg Maxwell.
In previous tests, TCs were 16 times larger than normal transactions. Researchers Benedikt Bünz and Jonathan Bootle have now found a way to compress the CTs so that the resulting output is only 3 times the normal size. Coinjoin’s basic premise is that two users can carry out a transaction at the same time, thus masking the inputs and outputs of both parties.

He went on to list the advantages of TCs, which do not include new cryptographic assumptions, high performance, or the reliable configuration required. “All major alternative schemes fail many of these criteria (for example, perhaps the Zcash scheme fails all of them),” he concluded.

A Step Closer to Anonymous Spending?

It would be premature to suggest that Confidential Transactions will make Riccardo Spagni of Monero, aka FluffyPony, shiver. Litecoin, as bitcoin’s smaller and more agile sibling, could have CT operational relatively quickly and without the need for a hard fork. It seems unlikely that this feature, if implemented, would cause Monero and Zcash users to flock to Litecoin. And it seems even less likely that CTs will appear in bitcoin soon.

Confidential transactions could add anonymity to Bitcoin and Litecoin

The majestically shaggy Gal Vallerius. When bitcoin was born, it was widely seen as an anonymous or at least pseudonymous currency that is virtually untraceable, provided some precautions were taken. However, as law enforcement has become increasingly adept at mapping movements across the blockchain, a series of failures have occurred. These include Dream’s alleged king of the market, Gal Vallerius, whose transactions have been tracked on Localbitcoins.com, where he reportedly collected his earnings from the deep web.
With bitcoin being courted by the investment banking industry and attracting more and more attention from CEOs and heads of state, untraceable transactions are likely not going to win by show of hands. There are legitimate and justifiable reasons why it is desirable to be able to conduct anonymous transactions on the web.