Yes.  See the whitepaper.  Also, it won't be hacked into core, it will be modular, and should function on every send.  Not special sends which are selected to be anonymized. (Not actually a word.  I still like it.)

Transaction times are varying because even though block times are still supposed to be ~1 minute, the hash rate is still varying wildly.  As we rely on miners to solve blocks, it requires one to be solved after a large portion of hash rate disappears before it adjusts downward again.  Once everything stabilizes a bit regarding multipools, price variations, etc, it should become more consistent.  If not, we will implement a better solution.

From the way I understood it, I think I've been given free reign to select and hire one myself.  I'll have to clairify before I'm certain, but I'm pretty sure.

To anyone who actually believes the FUD, or has doubts because of it, I would like to refer you to this satirical advertisement.

http://youtu.be/v_CgPsGY5Mw

In short, you can't believe everything you read on the internet.  Do your own research and think for yourselves.

I'm only angry at the fact that the vast majority of the dumped coin has ended up in the very hands of the ones who had nothing to add to this discussion aside from pointless accusations (which have already been debunked), false "news" (again, debunked), and harsh words (with the intent of discrediting those of us the community is looking toward for confidence and stability).  People with no interest in what benefits the community, nor the technology, and only wanted to make a quick buck -- and used the chaos ensuing from a hard fork and unveiling and first public testing of (albeit only slightly) new technology to do so.

There are very few things that really anger me.  Greed is one of them.

Thank you.

Actually, yes.  We've been giving this some serious consideration, and you can likely expect some news regarding this in the next week or two.

Also keep in mind that I was not involved with this project at its inception.  I was working on my own 2nd gen crypto that has not been released, but has been in development for the past 14 months.  (This is why the first major update required a newer compiler than what is required by other altcoins.)  Since joining this team, I've decided to start implementing some of the features that were a part of my original vision into litecoindark.  I feel that seeing something fresh, as opposed to recycled altcoin forks will do a lot to stimulate the crypto economy as a whole, and I feel that you don't need ICO/IPO 100% PoS coins with a foundation to pull it off, nor to do it well.

Nope.  Sorry to disappoint.

Again, if the community wants it and someone is willing to plan it, I'm up for it.

I'm a professional game developer, systems administrator, network engineer, and software architect who plays with crypto as a hobby.  Backwards? maybe.  Fun? Absolutely. 

I'm up for a Q&A and/or interview most any time.  If someone wants to organize and plan it, let me know.

The whitepaper for this particular system is far from finished.  It's not ready for public viewing, and right now stands only as a technical document.  Don't expect to see a big announcement on when it will be released or implemented, as we have already started integrating it by implementing difficultyshield outside of core.  The best advice I can offer until this whitepaper is ready is to read the sources.  Keep reading them on every commit.  Watch how it changes.  I'm not going to hype something in a lame attempt to push prices up.  I offer code.  If you want to know what it is or how it works, it's there for you to read, and will only continue to grow and evolve.  Talk is cheap.  I don't want to talk about making a change, I want to just do it.

TL;DR - I'm not going to simply tell it and hype it.  I'm going to just show it.  One commit at a time.

Xircom, you have my permission, lol. 

I think the biggest thing right now would be for people to examine not what difficultyshield does, but instead how it was implemented and how it will continue to be developed and grow over the coming months.  What we've designed is not a difficulty algorithm, but a system for modifying core functionality of the client without placing it haphazardly into the bitcoin core.  It just so happens that the first time we needed to use it was to modify the difficulty algorithm.  For the sake of getting it done in a timely fashion, I elected to use KGW in the module.  In the time I was alotted to get this done, this first implementation of difficultyshield leaves a lot to be desired, and difficultyshield is a horrific misnomer for what we're actually creating here, but a modular system properly executed in the way this is designed (on paper) would allow for nearly limitless possibilities; and to my knowledge, the type of system I'm developing does not exist in any other altcoin.  It is unique to LTCD, and will be published under the same open source license as the rest of the project.

We have a lot more in store, unfortunately, I'm a coder, not a press-release writer.  Keep watching the code, it doesn't lie, and it will improve greatly over the coming months as I replace more and more of the core with similar modular systems in order to implement the features voted on by the community and laid out in the whitepaper and roadmap.

FUD happened.  Also a blockchain fork happened, and a lot of people were mining on an invalid chain.  While I'm not concerned about the price, it bothers me that people that helped get us over that bump at 16300 ended up not getting their fair share of reward.  I have no idea how to solve this problem as it could happen to absolutely any coin, theoretically including Bitcoin itself.  You can be absolutely certain that I will be giving it a good amount of thought and will discuss any possible courses of action with the rest of the team and the community at large.

Also, no-one associated with the LTCD dev team has said anything about a relaunch.  Anything you heard was FUD, please don't spread it.  There is no planned relaunch, and new checkpoints will be added to ensure that this chain sticks.

I've been right here.   Sacrificing the last few hours of sleep I could have gotten before yet another day at my day job, helping people with any and all issues that I've had any control over.  I'm almost always on the IRC.  I can't watch the forum, write the code, do tech support for the entire community, help cover PR, and deal with the FUD too.  The rest of the team will be doing what they can too.

Thanks for your support, whether you choose to give it or not.

And a special thanks to all of you who have been helping give support and cover FUD duty as well.  Your efforts are greatly appreciated.

Have you read the bitcoin whitepaper?  Do you understand how the protocol works?  Do you know what consensus is?


Everyone else:

Let the market do what it will, but don't be influenced by everything you read.  People will say or do almost anything to make money.

See, everyone?  I've never seen so much panic over a pool's statistics pausing for a little while.  Calm down, people, the algorithm works.  The chain is moving again.  Everything else will sort itself out.

No I didn't go to bed.  I'm sitting here trying to figure out what everyone's panicking over.  The chain is working.  The blocks are being found.  One pool is on a fork, one pool has a busted front end.  That doesn't mean anything when you look at how nodes gain consensus over which fork of the chain is valid.

Whichever fork is longest will win in the end.  The network will gain consensus.  Best pool's statistics being broken DO NOT bean that they're not finding coins.  MPOS is NOT the daemon.  It's the pool frontend.  Has nothing to do with the blockchain.  Just because you can't see the last block they found doesn't mean they haven't found any.

Anyone trying to withdraw from hashlink isn't going to have any luck until they are on the correct chain.