The possibility of non-interactive transactions with MimbleWimble (MW) looks attractive at first and would certainly be a game changer, but possibly not in the way that many would like.
MW has the often cited "disadvantage" that direct contact must be established between sender and receiver in some way. No other crypto-protocol works in such a "cumbersome" or "old-fashioned" way.
With all conventional crypto-protocols, the sender sends the coins to an address on the blockchain and the transaction is completed. No action by the recipient is necessary. However, in order to achieve privacy, these protocols require considerable effort, which is reflected in increased computing power, increased memory requirements and lower scalability.
With MW, everything works quite differently. There are no public addresses on the blockchain. The sender must make direct contact with the recipient in order for a transaction to be completed. This means that both sender and recipient must be online at the same time in order to complete a transaction. (Workarounds to circumvent the simultaneity already exist).
Without going into the exact mechanism here, a MW transaction can be thought of as the exchange of cash. In order to transfer cash, direct contact must be established between two people. Here, too, you can imagine a "workaround" where the money is deposited somewhere by the sender by agreement and later collected by the recipient.
In contrast, conventional cryptos can be thought of like a bank account. If the account number is provided, the money can simply be transferred without any contact having to be established between the people involved. The recipient can access his account at any time, even years later, and dispose of the credited amount.
However, this comparison, which is certainly very simplified and not entirely correct, makes the essential principle clear. MW has no public addresses on the blockchain and can therefore be compared more to cash; all other crypto-protocols have public addresses on the blockchain and are therefore more comparable to a standard bank account.
So if you want to eliminate interactivity with MW, you can only do so via public addresses on the blockchain, which immediately destroys the cash character and thus significantly reduces privacy, which would then have to be established with considerable additional effort, as with other privacy coins.
The interesting thing about MW is precisely this interactivity, which, just like cash, already includes privacy in its simplest form. The disadvantage of this “cumbersome” interactivity, which is often emphasized, is precisely the advantage of MW. If you wanted to eliminate the interactivity of cash, you would simply no longer have cash.
If interactivity is removed from MW, privacy must be created in other ways. Computing effort and storage requirements would increase and scalability would decrease, as with all other privacy coins. The huge advantage MW has over all other privacy coins would be lost and MW would become a mere shadow of its former self.
The inconveniences of MW are minimal and will be reduced even further. It would be a mistake to try to eliminate the ”cumbersome” interactivity, which is basically the biggest advantage over all other privacy blockchains.
The fact that addresses and amounts are not stored on the blockchain could soon be crucial. All other privacy blockchains store all sensitive data on the blockchain forever, even if it is encrypted and hidden.
Those who commission the development of quantum computers are already waiting to decrypt all this data. Any non-MW-based privacy coin would be no better than the surveillance-coin BTC. Not so with MW. Where nothing is stored, nothing can be decrypted.
For more information visit: t.me/epicprivatemoney
Have you done or can you do an article about offline/delayed transaction ? Specially about the 100% insurance for the receiver that the transaction will be published/completed later. If no hack can be done then it'll be the perfect anti lightning alternative.