Recapping the First Three Years of MimbleWimble Development
It has been three years since the MimbleWimble concept was first introduced as a solution to scale Bitcoin. With the whitepaper now dating back three years, it is a good time to see how far the development of this project has come. There is still plenty of work to be done, although it seems things are heading in the right direction.
From Whitepaper to Beam
On July 19 of 2016, a lot of people took notice of the MimbleWimble whitepaper. It offers a lot of potentially great concepts and ideas which would benefit the cryptocurrency industry as a whole. At that time, everyone knew it would not be easy to turn this paper into working technology. Three years later, there is now the Beam main net – released on January 3rd of 2019 – and several dozen releases through the project’s main repository.
Fixing issues is part of any code release, and the Beam team had to intervene multiple times. All of these issues were fixed pretty quickly and without causing any damage. It is good to see this project being so actively maintained, as many people still believe this technology will elevate cryptocurrencies to a whole new level in the years to come.
Mobile Wallets Take Center Stage
As has become common in this industry, mobile wallets are a great way to bring new technology to the broader community. For the Beam team, the Android and iOS wallets were released in April of 2019, both of which have been well-received by the community. It is a convenient mobile solution without unnecessary and confusing bells and whistles, while still providing the core functionality to anyone and everyone.
Atomic Swaps Arrived in July
To further decentralize the cryptocurrency ecosystem, a solution needs to be created to address centralized trading gateways. Many people expect atomic swaps to become more commonplace in this regard. Through Beam and the core MimbleWimble protocol, the option to perform atomic swaps between Bitcoin and Litecoin was unveiled in July of 2019. Although it is far from a finished product, the technology seems to work quite well. It is now a matter of creating a proper UI for this feature, as most people simply aren’t coders.
What is Coming Next?
Plenty of things will be happening with Beam and MimbleWimble in the foreseeable future. First of all, there is the upcoming hard fork, which will go into effect in about a month from today. It is a crucial step toward further exploring this technology and making the cryptocurrency industry more versatile and accessible. It will not be an easy feat by any means, but with time and dedication, anything becomes possible.
Other future developments to look forward to are one-sided payments, payments through payment state channels, and Trezor hardware wallet integration. All of those future developments can play a crucial role in the development of Beam and MimbleWimble. It may also facilitate broader use of the Beam blockchain, as its current transaction throughput is far from the maximum level. As long as the community continues to grow, things are looking up for this team.
Disclaimer: This is not trading or investment advice. The above article is for entertainment and education purposes only. Please do your own research before purchasing or investing into any cryptocurrency or digital currency.
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JP Buntinx, Khareem Sudlow