Litecoin's Big Release: What You Can Expect From v24 Update

Litecoin's gearing up to launch its latest and greatest update, v24, and it's expected to be released later this year. This update will come packed with new features that'll make it easier for wallets to adopt Litecoin's MWEB privacy and fungibility features. Plus, it'll bring Litecoin up to speed with the latest Bitcoin core version.

The lead MWEB developer released progress for February and March on the litecointalk.io site. There are (5) new features that will be added in this new Litecoin Core update.

1. PSBTs

2. P2P Support for Lite Clients

3. View Keys

4. Payment Proofs

5. Descriptor Wallets

One of the most significant updates is the addition of Partially Signed Bitcoin Transactions (PSBTs), which aims to encourage hardware wallet support for MimbleWimble Extension Blocks (MWEB). This will allow for hardware wallets like Ledger and Trezor to add support for Litecoin MWEB more easily.

Another feature that is coming is support for P2P MWEB for light clients. Currently, the only wallet that supports MWEB is Litecoin Core. This update will allow mobile wallets like Litewallet to add support for Litecoin MWEB giving users more privacy when paying with litecoin. This update will also reduce the storage requirements for these wallets, allowing for faster wallet syncing times.

The addition of View Keys is another update that is set to improve the user experience. View Keys will enable users to have "watch-only" wallets, which do not require access to their private spend keys to identify transactions sent or received. This feature will enable users to monitor their transactions without worrying about the risk of exposing their private spend keys to a third party.

Payment Proofs is another significant update, which will help users prove that they have made a payment using Litecoin MWEB. With traditional Litecoin transactions, users can prove that they have sent coins to an address by signing a message with their private key and pointing to the transaction on the blockchain. However, with MWEB, addresses, and amounts are private, making it more complex to prove payment. Payment Proofs will provide more detailed proof, which will help in the event that users need to prove to an arbiter that they have made a payment.

Finally, Descriptor wallets are set to improve the overall sustainability of Litecoin's wallet backend. The current wallet code is limited and not designed to handle the many script types and features that have since been developed (P2SH, Taproot, BIP32, and now MWEB).

Descriptor wallets will provide a more extensible replacement for the existing wallet backend and will be able to handle MWEB addresses, making it easier for developers to integrate new features into the Litecoin wallet.

The Litecoin v24 update is set to be a significant milestone in the development of Litecoin. These updates will provide more users with increased privacy and fungibility, making Litecoin one of the leading cryptocurrencies competing as better money.

The release of v24 is expected to take place in the summer.

Download the latest litecoin version here to get started running Litecoin MWEB. https://litecoin.org/