Beam; The Scalable Privacy Crptocurrency

_{: Beam}

Introduction

The primary aim of introducing bitcoin to the world’s economy was to implement the concept of a peer to peer electronic money decentralized system. Before this, all supplies and circulation of money depended on a centralized system where all supplies and control of money were in the hands of the government. Bitcoin came into existence about 10 years ago to liberate the common individual and give him control over his funds by introducing a decentralized system of money. This system although decentralized has not provided enough privacy as all exchanges and activities on the crypto-sphere are put away in an open database called the block-chain with the subtle elements of the exchanges and crypto-related activities on the block-chain cryptographically scrambled but also easily traceable by the use of advanced technology.

The block-chain technology has provided a lot and even more than the fiat banking system could ever provide, all except privacy. Most individuals are not comfortable with the fact that their transactions, exchanges and financial activities on the block-chain can be traced by just anyone. We all deserve a little privacy on the block-chain, as sensitive information is termed sensitive because it wasn’t meant for the public’s eyes and ears. The issue of privacy on the block-chain has been a passive but delegate one, but thankfully, a group of thoughtful and learned individuals discovered this problem and presents the crypto-sphere with Beam, a solution to help bridge these gaps in the crypto-sphere.

What is Beam?

^{Video presentation by Beam CEO Alexander Zaidelson}

Beamis a cutting-edge classified digital currency, that is depended on a rich, inventive and innovative protocol, called the “MimbleWimble”. It is a faceless store of value coin.
Things That Make BeamStand out from other existing cryptocurrencies;
· Scalability – This is achieved through the compact blockchain size, utilizing the cut-through feature of the MimbleWimble Protocol. It is smaller, faster and more efficient.

Confidentiality – Users have total control over information that can be accessible by the public. Also, all transactions are private. Transactions information and addresses are not stored on the blockchain.

· Versatility - Beamsupports various transaction types such as the atomic swaps, escrow transaction etc via its scriptless script technology.

· Usability – Beamhas a wallet that can be adapted to mobile phones as well as desktops and
· Compatibility - Equihash Proof-of-Work algorithm is used to secure and wide adoption of this technology by professional Gpu miners.
· Sustainability – It is open source and developed from scratch by expert developers and engineers.

How will Beamchange crypto-user store of value

They are various things beam can do and possesses that would aid in the change of a crypto-user’s store of value which include;
· It provides privacy for the crypto-user and anonymously stores the value of the coin.
· It gives user opportunity to choose which information can be accessible by the general public and which would remain private.
· Beamis developed from scratch by a group of experienced and professional developers/ engineers.
· Beamsupports various transaction types like escrow, atomic swap etc.
· It keeps addresses of sender and receiver and also does not store transaction data on the block-chain.
· It compresses a block-chain into a single transaction.

How are the Current Block-chain arrangements Lacking Privacy?

Most of the existing block-chain technologies including bitcoin are decentralized but transactions are not truly as confidential as they pose to be. Earlier users of the block-chain technologies used to think that their true identity could not be tracked because of the randomly generated keys that played the roles of addresses to send and receive funds, but this is not really the case with the introduction of advanced technology, the identity of crypto-users could be traced and known through the data leaks from these transactions that are bound to occur, according to results gotten from block-chain analysis.
Most crypto-users and individuals as a whole appreciate their privacy and would not want sensitive information, like their transactions, balances e.t.c. Beamwould improve the level of confidentiality by reducing the visibility of information about transaction and only storing addresses and data the user choses to store in a public ledger.

How would beam solve these privacy problems on the blockchain?

Beamuses the mimblewimble protocol to achieve transactions that are confidential without making the network congested and slow. Beamcan merge transactions, it has a compact blockchain size with smaller magnitude nodes which can help turn an entire blockchain into a transaction. It is built from scratch by professional developers and its designed to support mass adoption with network congestion.

What is Mimblewimble

Mimblewimbleprotocol lays emphasis on;
· Confidential Transactions &
· Transaction Cut-through
This is a new protocol introduced by Greg Maxwell that would encrypt transaction data, make it anonymous and at the same time have a valid sum of amounts. This protocol is used to achieve confidential transactions using two approaches; hiding and binding. Greg Maxwell proposed encrypting the sums in a transaction in order to make the transaction graph anonymous (hiding) but still show some level of authenticity that the amounts are correct while Nicolas Van Saberhagen developed a system that is able to blind these transactions. Mimblewimblemakes use of Pedersen Commitment Scheme that establishes its protocol via the Elliptic Curve Cryptography with the formula; C = r * G + v * H

Where ‘r’ denotes the blinding factor, ‘G’ denotes the generator point, ‘H’ also represents the generator point and V represents the real value. Every input and output transaction on the blockchain is a linear combination of a blinding factor and an actual value of a transaction. Using the Mimblewimbleanonymous protocol to establish transactions would require a transfer of ownership of the unspent transaction output where the person who is transferring the unspent output tells the receiver the value of his/her transactions and in return, the receiver generates his output commitment using a unique binding factor.

The Mimblewimbleprotocol helps in minimizing transaction and blockchain size cutting through and merging transactions. The Merkle tree is also used in ensuring the authenticity of the history of transaction that displays only headers of previous and recent transactions.
The requirements for prove of ownership of the unspent transaction output is the value of the factor and the special binding element, which at the same time does not make storing of data a necessity. Unlike other blockchain technologies in the crypto-sphere, Beamdoesn’t store transaction data, personal information and addresses, it only stores the commitment on the blockchain.

How does having compact block-chain size increase performance and scalability

A compact blockchain size increases performance and scalability because authentication information required to authenticate a whole blockchain is a lot smaller than the total list of transactions on the blockchain. It utilizes the cut-through feature of the wimblemimble protocol to reduce computational overhead, causing the Beamblockchain-size smaller and more efficient.

Use Case

Case 1

Abigail is a student who adopted the blockchain technology in its early stages and had the opportunity to buy a lot of bitcoin at very cheap rates. Bitcoin as we all know it has appreciated tremendously over the years which made her acquire an outrageous amount of wealth. She feels insecure, as she is aware of the advancement in technology and how can be deanonymized at any time. She plans to exchange all of it for fiat but still and interest in investing and trading in the crypto-sphere for more gains. She starts looking for ways in which she could store her coins but in a very confidential way that would not disclose her transactions and balances to the public, luckily for her she found Beam. She is now sure that she can own these coins and carry out a transaction using Beamin a faceless, confidential and secure manner.

Case 2

Flora is a CEO of a cryptocurrency company which have been around almost immediately after the inception of digital currencies. Flora manages and pay her executives and employees in digital currencies. She pays them according to the work they put in for the company which would make her fund the employees in lower levels more than those in higher levels and positions. This has led to conflicts and misunderstanding in the company and it also forced her into looking for ways she could share funds amongst employees with a certain level of privacy priviledge ascribed to the Ceo and top executive of her company who are responsible for fund management. Flora was going through her feed on steemit when she read an article about Beam. She then adopts the Beamtechnology, now she can share funds amongst employees without causing conflict as information that she allows to reach the general public and regular employees are controlled by her and her trusted executives.

^{bullet proof and mimblewimble}

^{mimblewimble and scriptless script}

Summary

Beamis built on the Mimblewimbleprotocol that helps users establish faceless and secure transactions. It has a compact blockchain size that is much smaller, faster and more efficient. The hiding and blinding approaches of the mimblewimble protocol makes the faceless transactions on the Beamblockchain perfect. Beam is able to cut-through and merge transaction without clogging up the system and at the same time ensuring confidentiality and scalability.