Steemit Crypto Academy Contest / S12W3 - The Mimblewimble Protocol

Assalamualaikum everyone.

Welcome to the post. Hopefully, all of you will be doing well and enjoying time with the grace and blessings of Almighty Allah. Today, I'm here to be a part of the week 3 contest in our beloved SteemitCryptoAcademy community. The topic of discussion for this week is very much interesting, The MimbleWimble Protocol. So, let's start the discussion without any wastage of time.

Use your own words to show your understanding of the Mimblewimble protocol.

We all know that the blockchain technology is an advanced form of the financial realm and there are many unique and impressive features that are adopted by the blockchain system. However, there are a few limitations that are actually known as the Blockchain Trilemma, according to which the attainability of three core features is difficult simultaneously.

To overcome the issues that the blockchain technology is facing for a long time, there are many attempts by the crypto experts and core developers to eradicate the issues. One of the greatest complication has been the scalability of the blockchain. Other two are the security and the visibility of transactions.

Moving towards the main point, MimbleWimble Protocol is actually an attempt to improve the overall efficiency of the blockchain systems. It is actually an advanced protocol system which offers high degree of privacy, scalability and performance. It was actually introduced by an anonymous party which later related to the name of Sir. Tom Elvis Jedusor in 2016 but it gained popularity in 2018.

We all know that privacy and security is the main concern of every person, especially in the field of finance and trading. So, to improve the privacy of the transactions that are carried out in the blockchain, the MimbleWimble Protocol was introduced. If you are a Harry Potter lover, you will have knowledge about the word, MimbleWimble.

It is actually a type of dealing (selling and purchasing) in which the private information about the buyer and seller, amount of the transactions, and addresses are not disclosed publicly. Sams happens in the MimbleWimble Protocol where the transactions are kept very private. In short, we can say that the main objectives of the MimbleWimble Protocol are high scalability, high privacy and more efficiency of the transactions.

Explain how the Mimblewimble protocol works, giving an illustrative example.

As I have already explained that the MimbleWimble Protocol is actually an advanced blockchain protocol and it's motto was to improve the scalability and privacy of the blockchain. There are a few major components/features of the MimbleWimble protocol which are involved while making a transaction on this protocol. Let me explain them one by one with the illustrations.

Let suppose that two person, Ahmad and Ali, want to make a transaction. Ahmad wants to send an amount of 10 coins to Ali and they are performing the transaction on the MimbleWimble protocol blockchain. First of all, there is an Input from Ahmad which ensures the withdrawal of 10 coins from his wallet. When the withdrawal is approved, a secret set of some puzzles, known as Blinder Factors.

Then, there comes the role of the Confidential Transaction. According to it, the information of the sender and receiver and the amount of transactions are kept secret. The input is converted into a complex mathematical equation. After that, the aggregation of various transactions in a single block happens which is actually related to the CoinJoin mechanism.

The next step is the implementation of the Cut-Through technique. According to this technique, the spent transactions are removed from the block. For example, the 10 coins that are sent by Ahmad are actually spent so they are removed from the blockchain, hence the size of the blocks is reduced and this thing plays a vital role in improving the scalability of a blockchain.

In this way, the transactions are successfully verified by the system these information are not shown publicly, means they are not transparent to everyone. When the receiver gets the notification of the deposit of 10 coins, he will have to put the same Blinder Factors which are used by the sender, hence it ensures that the funds are only accessible for the original owner.

Do you think the Mimblewimble protocol could be used on the Steem blockchain to improve scalability and privacy?

Yes, off course I believe that the integration of the Steem blockchain with the MimbleWimble protocol would be an impressive step for the betterment and growth of the Steem blockchain. Actually, there is a unique potential in any new protocol which is introduced in the blockchain ecosystem and we should identify if that protocol is beneficial for our blockchain or not by determining the drawbacks as well.

Just like the nature of the MimbleWimble protocol, it will provide high degree of security, privacy and scalability to the Steem blockchain if it is adopted here. We all know that the Steem blockchain is a transparent and decentralized blockchain and every transaction which is carried out on the chain can be easily viewed abd traced with the help of different tools.

So, if the MimbleWimble protocol will be adopted here, we will be able to see a huge benefit of high privacy because our transactions will be completely secure and cannot be viewed by the common person which are present on the blockchain. The details of the sender and receivers, the amount of transaction, and other sensitive information will be kept private (which is not seen in the conventional Steem blockchain).

Another potential gain by the integration of the MimbleWimble protocol with the Steem blockchain will be the high degree of scalability. I have already explained that the MimbleWimble protocol make the block size smaller with the use of the Cut-Through and CoinJoin mechanisms. So, it plays a very important role in improving the scalability and the overall efficiency of the blockchain.

While, Considering the Drawbacks...

Besides the huge benefits that would be gain by the implementation of the MimbleWimble protocol on the Steem blockchain, there are also some considerable drawbacks of this integration. First of all, there are chances that this protocol wil be used for the fraudulent activities on the Steem blockchain. Just like we see multiple abuses like account farming, it will grow more.

This is because of the fact that the transactions will become completely private and secure, so no one would be able to access those transactions which are related to the abuses. Moreover, the integration of this protocol is not an easy task. It requires a lot of consumption of energy and sources. Another thing is that it is difficult to integrate this protocol in the already existing blockchain projects. So, these are some drawbacks which should also be considered.

Discuss in detail a crypto (its blockchain) that uses the Mimblewimble protocol.

Due to the potential gains of the scalability and high privacy of the MimbleWimble protocol, many blockchain projects have adopted it for gaining these benefits. Some of the most popular blockchains that are adopting the MimbleWimble protocol are given below:

• Grin (GRIN)
• Beam (BEAM)
• MimbleWimble Coin (MWC)
• Litecoin (LTC)
• Epic Cash (EPIC)
• Grin++

The above are the names of some cryptocurrency projects that are currently using the MimbleWimble protocol. I will explore the Beam (BEAM) blockchain. Beam blockchain is actually an open source, highly secure, highly scalable and decentralized blockchain platform which is based on the MimbleWimble protocol.

The Beam blockchain was launched in March 2018 and the core developers of this project include Alexander Zaidelson, Alex Romanov and Amir Aaronson. The main vision behind the launch of the Beam project was to overcome the privacy issues that are raised by the users of different blockchains like Bitcoin (privacy concerns as the transactions are accessible for public).

Beam platform is actually based on two blockchain protocol that are MimbleWimble protocol and the LelantusMW. As I have already said that the main concern of this protocol was to get high degree of privacy and scalability because the transactions are confidential and trustable as the information of the deals and the amounts are not disclosed on the chain.

There is a very unique and impressive feature which is used by the Beam platform, known as opt-in auditability. According to this feature, the users have the option to disclose some particular information about the carried transaction on the chain. This feature was introduced to maintain a balance between the privacy and compliance.

The most impressive thing about the Beam project is that it has a very easy to use wallet that can be attached with various platforms to perform the confidential transactions. The TPS of Beam is also impressive due to the use of the MimbleWimble protocol. Moreover, the market capitalisation of the BEAM coin is also great and it also adopted halving mechanism just like Bitcoin. Have a look at the overview of BEAM coin.

In the above screenshot, you can see that the current price of BEAM coin is 0.0264$ with a total market capitalization of 3,805,604$. Current Ranking of the coin is #964. This overall market cap of the BEAM coin is quite impressive and this is a potential project in the future.

Mention the advantages and disadvantages of the Mimblewimble protocol.

As I have already stated tha the MimbleWimble protocol is a potential evolution in the blockchain technology. There are various gains that can be obtained from the MimbleWimble protocol, and also there are some drawbacks of this protocol. The advantages and disadvantages of MimbleWimble protocol are given below one by one.

• High Degree of Privacy:

Privacy is the main concern of every individual. So, the MimbleWimble protocol provides a very high degree of privacy because the information of the transactions are not accessible publicly on the chain. This thing make the users more comfortable while transacting because of the confidential transactions.

• High Degree of Scalability:

Scalability means the ability of a blockchain to carry out a number of transactions per unit time. The use of the CoinJoin mechanism and Cut-Through technique makes the MimbleWimble protocol a highly scalable blockchain and improves the efficiency.

• Simplicity:

The MimbleWimble protocol also provided simplicity to the blockchain in which it is adopted. This is gained by the removal of many complex processes and reducing the size of the blocks.

• Improve Fungibility:

The use of the MimbleWimble protocol in the blockchains also provides huge Fungibility to the coins of the particular blockchain and hence the blockchain becomes more reliable for the investors or general users.

As we all know that noting is perfect in this universe. So, the same is the case with the MimbleWimble protocol. There are some drawbacks of this protocol that are discussed below.

• Less Collaboration between Both Parties:

As I have already siad that the details of the transactions are kept very private thus there is very less collaboration or contact between the parties which are dealing with each other.

• High Consumption of Resources:

The use of the MimbleWimble protocol is not an easy task. It requires a lot of consumption of the energy and resources to integrate any blockchain with the MimbleWimble protocol. So, this is also another drawback of MimbleWimble protocol.

Conclusions

The MimbleWimble protocol is an advanced protocol in the blockchain technology. It provides a huge benefit in the term of security, privacy and scalability of the platform. The MimbleWimble protocol can be adopted in different blockchain platforms to improve the overall efficiency of the system. There are some drawbacks of the MimbleWimble protocol as well including limitations and high resources consumption.

I would like to invite my friends @malikusman1, @cryptoloover, @f2i5, @suboohi, @sahar78,@josevas217 and @aaliarubab to be a part of this amazing contest.