Lightning network teams are working on protocols that work ontop of Bitcoin. When Bitcoin moved over to Segwit, it paved the way for lightning network to work their magic. The lightning network will have many layers. The layer being discussed today is CT which is Confidential transactions.
You can listen to Bitcoin Core developers and they state their wish is to see Bitcoin more anonymous. You can come to a relatively sure assumption that Bitcoin's future will evolve into a more fungible, cash like currency. This digital cash would meet the ideal ethos that Satoshi Nakimoto and many of Bitcoin Core team have.
Bitcoin implementing Segwit was to enable Bitcoin to benefit from many of the Lightning network developments. Many of the Lightning Network developments are set out in the Litecoin roadmap.
On the Litecoin roadmap it clearly shows that confidential transactions (CT) is a protocol that is destined for Litecoin and most likely Bitcoin.
CT provides real fungibility.
In cryptocurrency, fungibility means that all bitcoins have the same value, regardless of who owns them or what their history is – and fungibility is extremely important to the success of a decentralised network.
To understand why, we have to analyse how bitcoin's current limited fungibility is creating real problems in the marketplace.
For example, it's common for exchanges and merchants to discriminate between bitcoins based on the owner or their history. An example is that exchanges like Coinbase will attempt to block bitcoins that have been stolen, especially if the theft was well publicised.
Other points of discrimination can extend to include bitcoins associated with drugs, gambling and other illegitimate activities. But it's important to note, this can happen even in cases where the owner of those bitcoins hasn't engaged in any such behavior.
In summary Bitcoin's lack of fungibility could mean Bitcoins with clean history can be accepted everywhere, while coins with dirty history can only be accepted in places that aren't performing strict background checks. Thus decreased value Bitcoin's based on historical use.
Some exchanges may not accept CT. Although with atomic swaps, this problem can be circumvented by avoiding exchanges and exchanging cross chain on the lightning network.
https://www.reddit.com/r/litecoin/comments/2yasup/charlie_lees_opening_keynote_at_mit_bitcoin_expo/
