Litecoin development nonexistent! Leaked messages from a litecoin developer shows no evidence of active development on privacy features. Litecoin users were hit with a large-scale privacy-compromising attack.
According to messages leaked from a Telegram chat with developers, Franklyn Richards, Director of the Litecoin Foundation, expressed frustration at the lack of any solid development progress on touted upcoming privacy improvements and vague answers from the development team:
According to messages from a Telegram Chat with developers, Franklyn Richards, Director of the Litecoin Foundation, expresses frustration at the lack of Litecoin development progress, saying:
“What would happen if I right now told people actually in public Litecoin has zero active development and I haven’t heard anything from the lead developer in months?”
Charlie Lee, the founder and lead developer of Litecoin responded to criticism bluntly. He blamed lack of interest from seasoned and educated developers, saying:
“The honest truth is that no one is interested in working on Litecoin protocol development work. At least no one technically competent. You can’t just throw money at this problem. This is true for Litecoin since the beginning.”
Litecoin forked from Bitcoin in 2011, and has since then faced criticism for limited development, lack of innovation when compared to Bitcoin’s advancements.
This breaking news of the lack of Litecoin’s development comes shortly after Litecoin users have come under a large-scale dusting attack. A dusting attack is a method where attackers use very small amounts of a coin and send it to a wide variety of addresses.
One of the things that can be gleaned from a dusting attack is correlations and identities of ownership over funds. Litecoin was working on a variety of privacy implementations, including Confidential Transactions (CT), and development for CT was allegedly already underway. However, according to Richards, the progress has not met expectations.
“I was extremely disappointed to discover that no progress had been made on CT since the announcement, especially when I stand on stage telling everyone it’s happening and we are actively working on it.”
Richards further expresses his frustration by saying:
“I am a director of the Foundation if I don’t see it then something is wrong. I have a private chat where I have asked for dev updates numerous time and have zero response. You sit in on these talks that are hidden from me? It’s a moral dilemma. We cannot ask for money yet privately say there’s no dev to pay with it, Charlie can’t also say we will have CT in 2019 and then say he doesn’t care when people ask for updates or expect some progress to have been made.”
Charlie Lee had this to say:
“When there’s update, I will post an update. Sorry, but I don’t very much care if people are disappointed if they expect a lot of progress. People need to stop looking to me to make everything happen. It’s a decentralized currency after all, right? Or is it?”
Our own Kurt Wuckert Jr. had this to say about this developing story:
“I have long said that the “silver to BTC’s gold” narrative was a faulty one. Anyone who studies the history of bimetalism is aware that when people are given the option to work on or work with two currency options, they always choose the one of greater value in the long run.
The exception can be when new technologies in money emerge and there is a tug-of-war between competing currencies, but Litecoin has NEVER even rhetorically gone against the notion that it fully intends to be the #2 cryptocurrency and swear fealty to “the king.”
This is a losing strategy, and it shows in this devastating exposé of communication between Charlie and the other members of the Litecoin Foundation – but they never really intended for Litecoin to change the world anyways – or did they?”
What do you think? We’ve talked about Litecoin and their developers before. Kurt has been quite vocal about Litecoin as well. What do you think? Let us know on our Facebook Page!
