Mimblewimble blockchain protocol

Mimblewimble is a blockchain protocol developed to provide privacy, scalability, and fungibility for cryptocurrency transactions. It was originally proposed in 2016 by an anonymous author[1][2], who called himself Tom Elvis Jedusor, which is the French equivalent of Voldemort (a villain from the Harry Potter series of books and films). The protocol has been implemented as an open source software[3] by several crypto projects[4], such as Grin[5], Beam[6], Epic Cash[7], and Mimblewimble Coin[8] in 2019. The Litecoin project uses a sidechain to implement Mimblewimble transactions as an opt-in for the LTC network users.

Mimblewimble protocol uses two main features to achieve its goals of privacy and scalability: Confidential Transactions[9] and CoinJoin.[10] Confidential Transactions allow users to mask the value of the transaction, while CoinJoin allows users to combine multiple transactions into one, resulting in aggregate transactions that are smaller in size (thus scalability) and harder to trace (thus privacy). This combination of features allows Mimblewimble to provide greater privacy and scalability than other blockchain designs incorporating ring signatures, ZkSNARK, "stealth addresses", or IP address–obscuring methods (like Monero).

The Mimblewimble[11] also has a unique consensus mechanism called the “cut-through”.[12] This consensus mechanism works by removing redundant data from the blockchain, making it smaller and more efficient. The cut-through consensus mechanism also helps to reduce blockchain bloat, which can occur when large amounts of data are added to the blockchain. This reduces the size of the chain: for example, Epic Cash blockchain is only 3.8 GB, compared to Bitcoin's 315 GB, or Etherium 1.7 TB, as of March 2023.