LitecoinLTC
Charlie Lee's 2011 code fork of Bitcoin: “silver to Bitcoin's gold”, Scrypt proof of work, 2.5-minute blocks, MWEB privacy since 2022.
Charlie Lee has been on the show three times. The recurring question: if Lightning exists, why is Litecoin still alive? His answer is in S15 E30 and S15 E34.[8][3]
Launch
Charlie Lee (coblee) announced Litecoin on Bitcointalk, describing it as "silver to Bitcoin's gold"; a later edit to the thread records the launch as 13 October 2011 at 03:00 GMT[1]. It was forked directly from the Bitcoin source code, with the stated aim of not changing what works unless there was good reason[1].
Design
Litecoin uses the Scrypt proof of work, which the announcement credits to Tenebrix and ArtForz's implementation, and targets 2.5-minute blocks with 50 coins per block at launch[1]. The launch premine was 150 coins: the genesis block and the first two blocks[1].
MWEB
MimbleWimble Extension Blocks, an opt-in confidentiality feature led by David Burkett, reached its 75% miner signalling threshold on 2 May 2022, locked in for activation at block 2,257,920, and was announced as activated on 20 May 2022[2]. Charlie Lee discussed MWEB and privacy on Bitcoin Takeover S15 E34[3].
Heard on Bitcoin Takeover
Charlie Lee explained MWEB on S15 E34 (April 2024): “So every Litecoin block now has an extension block that has all the MWEB transactions.”[4]
In the same episode: “Litecoin doesn't need a second layer right now as much as Bitcoin does.”[5]
Other Charlie Lee episodes on Litecoin: S15 E30, ‘Charlie Lee on Lightning & Litecoin’ (April 2024)[6]; S11 E5, ‘Charlie Lee on Mimble Wimble Extension Blocks (MWEB)’ (June 2022)[7].
References
- primarycoblee, “[ANN] Litecoin - a lite version of Bitcoin. Launched!”, Bitcointalk topic 47417 (opened 9 Oct 2011; launch noted as 13 Oct 2011 03:00 GMT) [archived]
- primaryLitecoin Foundation, “MWEB Has Officially Activated”, 20 May 2022 [archived]
- episodeS15 E34: Charlie Lee on Privacy & MWEB — introduction▶ listen at 0:47timestamp transcript-derived, pending a listen [archived]
- episodeS15 E34: Charlie Lee on MWEB▶ listen at 14:02timestamp transcript-derived, pending a listen [archived]
- episodeS15 E34: Charlie Lee on second layers▶ listen at 7:18timestamp transcript-derived, pending a listen [archived]
- episodeS15 E30: Charlie Lee on Lightning & Litecoin [archived]
- episodeS11 E5: Charlie Lee on Mimble Wimble Extension Blocks (MWEB) [archived]
- btkS15 E30 show notes: Charlie Lee on Lightning, Litecoin & Why Payment Coins Survived [archived]