Litecoin (LTC) Gets Delisted from Biggest South Korean Exchanges

Today, June 8, it became known that major South Korean cryptocurrency exchanges such as Upbit and Bithumb decided to stop supporting Litecoin (LTC), due to the activation of the MimbleWimble Extension Block (MWEB) update on the main Litecoin network, a protocol with extensive scaling and increased privacy capabilities.

Based on Upbit's statement, the decision to delist Litecoin (LTC) was guided by South Korea's Specific Financial Information Act, which requires exchanges to be able to check transactions for transparency in order to prevent illegal money laundering or blackmail financing.

MimbleWimble, on the other hand, was implemented just to increase privacy on the Litecoin (LTC) network. It uses several technologies, including confidential transactions and CoinJoin, which hides sender and receiver inputs and outputs, and combines multiple transactions into one.

Upbit also stated that the exchange made a request to the Litecoin Foundation regarding the MWEB update and, based on the response to the request, a thorough review of the anonymous transfer technology was conducted. As a result of the review, it was decided to discontinue support for trading Litecoin (LTC), determining that the non-disclosure selection feature included in an update was consistent with anonymous transmission technology prohibited by the Financial Information Act.

Back to the 20s

At the time of this news, Litecoin (LTC) closes the top 20 largest cryptocurrencies, according to CoinMarketCap, with a $4.35 billion market capitalization. Token quotes barely reacted to the news, but maybe it was already built into the price at the time of the announcement. On the other hand, Litecoin (LTC) seems to have nowhere to fall, as it is quoted at November 2020 levels—$62—having offset all of its growth over the past two years.