Steemit Crypto Academy Contest / S12W3 - The Mimblewimble protocol
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Greetings to everyone and welcome to my engagement post for the Crypto Academy community, hope you get to learn something new as always from this week's topic of discussion. This week's discussion is on Understanding the Miblewimble protocol, a protocol utilized to enhance security and anonymity. Without further ado, I present my discussion.
Use your own words to show your understanding of the Mimblewimble protocol. |
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To the fans of the Magic Movie series Harry Potter like us, the word Mimblewimble is no stranger, as in the movies, this is a spell used to bind/tire tongues to keep them from exposing information or secrets.
The Wimblewinble protocol borrows this idea from the movie. Therefore, the Mimblewimble protocol is a Blockchain protocol that involves carrying out transactions in complete confidentiality through a distinctive security framework.
This is a protocol mechanism that denies the third party any access to the information of transactions, hence, all addresses and transactions are fully secretive. It is deemed different from that of other cryptocurrency protocols in the likes of Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Explain how the Mimblewimble protocol works, giving an illustrative example. |
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As stated earlier, the MimbleWimble protocol is all about keeping things secret from third parties hence transactions under this protocol do not contain wallet addresses or transactions of any particular user.
Rather, this protocol uses a group mechanism, that is, it groups and records different transactions under a single large transaction, which will be validated and verified without including any individual details, but rather treated as one big group transaction. Hence, the transaction data is only visible to its users, whereas all third party only sees a group of a random set of data.
By grouping different transactions into one transaction, the MimbleWimble protocol conceals the details of the transactions such as the public wallet addresses of both the issuer and the receiver and the amount of the tokens carried out in each transaction. All these data are registered as one big transaction and not as an individual transaction on the blockchain allowing the network to save significantly on storage space and increase the scalability.
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From the above transactions, it is seen that a single transaction has multiple inputs and outputs and validated as one transaction.
The Mimblewimble protocol utilizes the use of confidential transactions, which allows its users to encrypt the amount of coins they are sending, hence hiding the information from any third parties or outside observers.
By doing so, for every transaction verified, only a list of its transaction inputs, outputs, and the information of the corresponding firms are revealed, without any specific details.
The Mimblewimble protocol combines the use of some cryptographic features and protocols to achieve its goals, these features and protocols include;
- Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC)
- Confidential Transactions (CTs)
- CoinJoin
- Dandelion, and
- Cut-Through
Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC):
It is the ECC that allows Mimblewimble to fulfill the necessity of verifying the correct transaction amount and parties involved without publicly disclosing any data about the transaction.
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The protocol utilizes a well-known commitment strategy named Pedersen Commitment that helps achieve the use of the Elliptic Curve Cryptography as shown below
Where r is the blinding factor, a private key concealing the real value v, and G and H are generator points on a precise elliptic curve.
Confidential Transactions (CTs):
This is the protocol responsible for concealing the value of a transaction on Mimblewimble.
CoinJoin Protocol:
The CoinJoin protocol is responsible for making transactions nearly impossible to trace its trail. Hence, hiding the public addresses of transactions by combining payments from various senders under a single transaction.
Dandelion Protocol:
The Dandelion protocol is used to conceal the identity of both the sender and receiver, hence, this information remains private.
The Cut-Through protocol:
This protocol is utilized to create small transaction blocks by combining multiple sets of transactions into a single set to allow scalability.
Do you think the Mimblewimble protocol could be used on the Steem blockchain to improve scalability and privacy? |
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Before we answer the question of how Mimblewimble can help improve the scalability of the STEEM Blockchain, let's get to know what Scalability is all about.
The scalability of a blockchain is referred to as the speed of performing transactions, i.e. the ability of a blockchain to perform high volumes of transactions fast. This can also be explained as the ability of a blockchain to manage the influx of a large number of transactions effectively.
In this case, how does Mimblewimble help with scalability? Mimblewimble allows for better scalability by eliminating unnecessary transaction information hence reducing the block sizes, which in turn improves the scalability of a blockchain.
So YES, I think the Mimblewimble protocol can be utilized by the STEEM blockchain to help improve the scalability and privacy of the STEEM blockchain.
Discuss in detail the cryptography that uses the Mimblewimble protocol. |
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Many crypto projects are believed to have deployed the Mimblewimble protocol because of its strong security, privacy, and scalability features. Such crypto projects include;
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- Mimblewimble Coin
- Grin Coin
- Beam Coin
- Litecoin
MimbleWimble Coin:
MimbleWimble Coin (MWC), also known as “the technologically superior ghost money,” is the native cryptocurrency of the MimbleWimble protocol, hence, it uses the MimbleWimble protocol.
Grin Coin:
Grin (GRIN), the privacy-preserving digital currency is known to be the first to theorize the use of Mimblewimble in 2016. However, it wasn't launched until the year 2019, January 15th as stated on the official website.
Beam (BEAM):
Like Grin, Beam was also launched in January 2019 under the Mimblewimble protocol. Beam is a confidential decentralized finance (DeFi) that runs on the principles of the Mimblewimble protocol hence offering complete control over users’ privacy.
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Litecoin:
Probably the biggest of all among this list of coins is also said to have upgraded to the Mimblewimble protocol recently. Litecoin (LTC) was released in 2011, initially designed based on the Bitcoin protocol to provide fast, secure, and low-cost payments.
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However, in 2022 Litecoin announced the Mimblewimble Extension Block (MWEB) upgrade as part of the Litecoin Core 0.21.2, therefore incorporating the Mimblewimble protocol into its Blockchain.
Mention the advantages and disadvantages of the Mimblewimble protocol. |
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Mimblewimble protocol is believed to improve the following advantages;
ANONYMITY:
With Mimblewimble, since there are no transaction histories to be tracked, or addresses accessible to any third party, it boosts the anonymity of users who conduct transactions through the protocol.
FUNGIBILITY:
Eligibility in this case means being able to be traded or exchanged for one another, hence Mimblewimble features greater fungibility.
This is because one can exchange any cryptocurrency on its platform without the risk of loss while also making it difficult to trace, making it more fungible.
SCALABILITY:
The Mimblewimble protocol uses cryptographic features such as CoinJoin and cut-through to achieve scalability cutting out the burdens of a large block size limit.
As promising as this protocol can be, there are bound to be some drawbacks, therefore drawbacks of this protocol include;
It has a longer transaction throughput compared to other protocols since it runs on confidential transaction implementations and suffers from lower transaction speeds due to its data size.
The Mimblewimble protocol is more vulnerable to attacks from quantum computers because it is reliant on digital signatures.
CONCLUSION |
Mimblewimble was created to combat the privacy limitations of the cryptocurrency ecosystem, leading to improved scalability, fungibility, and anonymity among users. Its measures to make users' privacy the center of cryptocurrencies could lead to greater adoption in the Cryptocurrency ecosystem.
I wish to invite @yakspeace, @ninapenda, @ruthjoe, @drhira and @suboohi
Thank You for your Time
NOTE: Always have a smile on your face, as you are never fully dressed without one.
Upvoted! Thank you for supporting witness @jswit.
Thanks dear for inviting me, I will try my best to participate. You explained the Mimblewimble protocol very well. It's very informative and I learn something new from your post. Best of luck for the contest dear.
Thank you ma, congratulations for a successful ceremony and welcome back... I hope you will send my cakes across.
Thanks for sharing and spotlighting on mimblewimble protocol a privacy based blockchain thats is focused on giving users full privacy over their transaction you have done justice and used graphic illustrations to showcase various cryptographic features of this blockchain and also highlighted it advantage and disadvantages thanks wish you best of luck friend.
Thank you for this appreciative remarks. The mimblewimble protocol brought about the much wanted anonymity in the crypto world, however, it's adoption has been minimal. I wonder why?
I guess it strict privacy nature make it less attractive for people to use mimblewimble just to avoid regulatory problem.
I had hoped for scalability purpose, but I guess you're right, the very much secrecy I guess serves as hindrance also. But, cryptocurrencies in general seek for more privacy, hence the use of "Darkpool". So I still just can't help but wonder.
Very nice write up bro, very easy to understand and the illustration very practical and the images too. Wow I really enjoyed reading it. Thanks
This means a lot to me, as your remarks are heart warming, I'm glad to know it was simply enough for your comprehension. Thank you...
Hello @sahmie friend, Good morning!!!
The use of the Cut-Through technique and the CoinJoin mechanism in the MimbleWimble protocol make it quite scalable because the block size is reduced in this way. This contributes a lot towards improving the privacy and scalability of a blockchain.
Thank you dear for your precious sharing and good luck for the contest.
That is very true as it tends to reduce the size of each block by cutting out the unnecessary details.
Thank you friend for sharing such an amazing article with us and I am very happy that you participated explain each question in the most beautiful way as required
Mimblewimble protocol is not a new word for anyone I agree with you because if there are fans of series of Harry Potter present then they definitely know about this terminology because it is very famous in all his series of movies and this protocol really responsible for providing protection to a blockchain
You really explain very well that how this protocol works as well as you have also explain advantages and disadvantages of this protocol and overall you presented this article in beautiful words. You also visited my entry and I am very happy with it and I wish you success in this contest
I very much appreciate your efforts and good remarks. Thank you.
Your welcome and keep on hard work so that one day you may get a lot of success
Wow bro, You have a unique way to discuss and explain these topics about blockchain and cryptos.
The part where you explain:
You did it in such a fluent and understandable way, that you make it attention grabbing to read and read the development.
The part of :
It was very interesting how these currencies use this PP to guarantee the privacy and security of their users.
You have a great entry, I wish you much success.
Thank you for your time and well wishes. What can I say? I'm only trying to explain to my understanding hoping others would understand, thankfully you did.