One Arrow, Two Kills: Litecoin Announces Two Major Developments on May 31

Litecoin was on a roll on May 31, 2018, as the project’s founder, Charlie Lee, ecstatically tweeted about two major developments for the digital currency; firstly, a major platform upgrade and secondly, TapJets’ adoption of litecoin payments.

Litecoin v0.16.0 Launched

Announced on its official blog, Litecoin released its much-awaited Litecoin Core v0.16.0 on May 31, a significant update to the digital coin’s underlying blockchain.

The updated protocol shall feature changes to Litecoin’s wallet, GUI, RPC, and other components. The update boosts support for “pruned nodes,” which allows miners to run a version of the protocol nodes on low-storage, low-power computing devices in return of an incentive.

Additionally, it improves optimization for SHA256 – a cryptographic hash which serves as a “signature” for alphanumeric network addresses – by speeding up the function by 50 percent.

Native SegWit Wallets by Default

One significant update is full support for SegWit wallets, which the Litecoin Foundation has been seeking for a while. After this integration, all SegWit addresses shall be seamlessly added to the litecoin wallet. In all, the wallet shall now support legacy, p2sh-segwit (default), and bech32 addresses.

All multi-signature RPC created SegWit addresses shall have their “redeemscripts” added directly to the wallet file, making recovery of an old backup possible as long as it is accessed via the updated software.

In short, v0.16.0 has upgraded the default version of the HD wallets to save time and effort while smoothening bugs.

With regards to bugs, the update cleared out issues that plagued previous versions of the litecoin wallet. For example, the wallet’s directory is now more easy-to-use and accessible, in addition to introducing support for BIP 159 pruned nodes.

Flight Aggregator Announces Litecoin Support

With over 16,000 clients across the world, TapJets is a private jet booking platform that boasts of instant chartered plane bookings in “less than a minute.” On May 30, the booking platform rolled out support for litecoin payments, opening the digital currency to a suite of high-flyers.

The CEO of TapJets, Eugene Kesselman expressed on Twitter:

“The Litecoin community is strong, and we are happy to work with the Litecoin Foundation to welcome them to our platform. Making it easier to use cryptocurrency in more places is what separates the leaders from followers. This is precisely what the #PayWithLitecoin movement is all about.”

Lee extended his gratitude to the announcement, calling litecoin the “perfect cryptocurrency for payments” due to its liquidity, ease of integration, and speed, while thanking the Litecoin community that “helped make this partnership happen.”

Another flight provider, SurfAir, also announced acceptance of litecoin, as revealed by Charlie Lee on May 31, with more details to come in the following days.