There is never a lack of controversy in the cryptocurrency and blockchain industry. In recent days, there has been a lot of flack regarding Litecoin and its seeming lack of developer activity. Charlie Lee recently took to Twitter to explain a few different things, which only confirm the current state of LTC is not all that bad when looking at the bigger picture. Everything will be just fine in the long run, yet it is crucial to put everything in its right perspective.
Litecoin Remains Close to Bitcoin
Under the hood of Litecoin, most people will notice its code is very similar to that of Bitcoin. So much even that most of the Bitcoin-related changes will end up as a part of the Litecoin core protocol sooner or later. One interesting exception is how Litecoin implemented the Lightning Network well ahead of Bitcoin. Some users will claim this is simply for “testing purposes’ rather than actual development, although the opinions are still all over the place in that regard.
There is some upside to exploring this particular route of development. With just one lead Litecoin Core developer conducting the merges of Bitcoin code, and the rest focusing on other aspects of this project, a strong alternative to the world’s leading cryptocurrency is created and maintained. It is also interesting to note Litecoin has an actual lead Core developer, albeit an individual who doesn’t like to use Twitter all that much. That is a good thing, as cryptocurrency projects are about the code, not about who can make a project look better on social media.
Development Goes on Behind the Scenes
The big controversy in recent weeks is how Litecoin’s official GitHub repository shows there has been very little to no changes in the past eight months. That is not entirely surprising by any means, although it seems plenty of people overlooked some key aspects. First of all, there was the release of Litecoin Core 0.17.1 about three months ago, which introduced some interesting changes and improvements. Ignoring such a crucial release and claiming no development has been done only highlights how shortsighted some cryptocurrency enthusiasts can be in 2019.
To put this release in its perspective, the majority of its code wasn’t written in 2019. Since this update focuses mainly on implementing the changes introduced to Bitcoin, the majority of work could be conducted in 2018. As a result, GitHub also shows this Litecoin-related code as credited to Bitcoin developers, simply because the commits were virtually identical in every single case. On the surface, this looks rather confusing, but Charlie Lee’s explanation makes plenty of sense.
Release 0.18.1 is in Development
To further confirm Litecoin’s development is still going strong, one has to look at the lead Core developer’s own GitHub repository. It shows the work on release 0.18.1 is going on as planned, albeit a release date has not been announced at this time. Rest assured that release will be communicated well in advance. Once this code is merged into the main Litecoin repository, all of the commits and coding conducted throughout 2019 will become visible as well. It is certainly true that the communication with the community could be improved upon a bit, but that doesn’t warrant all of the FUD Litecoin had to contend with in the past few weeks.
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