Introduction. 

Finally, the moment we have all been waiting for... Bitcoin, the 21st century financial super hero, that is here to combat the corrupt centralised financial system that dominates our society. Bitcoin provides the safest way to manage our finance with our two eyes closed without fear of loosing our personal data to external agents. 

Everyone is responsible for their account, that was what we were meant to believe. Unfortunately, the reality is different because it's susceptible to hackers. Hackers has created a way of obtaining significant amount of information about individuals and organisations that uses the bitcoin blockchain for financial purposes. 

There is a reason for this popular quote:

 Information is Power.

In order words, anyone who is able to hack your bitcoin account to get such a valuable information from you has power over you and that is a cause for an alarm. Privacy is a right, we must not use technology to plunder our data, but to protect them. Full privacy is only obtainable when balances and transactions of individuals and organisation isn't made public and only accessible by authorised people. To make this possible, there would be a need to deny unauthorized parties access to their transaction details such as; the amount transferred, participants' identities and any other details that could reveal their identities thereby ensuring that only little information are kept.

Another issue face with bitcoin blockchain is scalability. 

Imagine since 2009 that bitcoin was introduced and now, the multitude all over the world that is now on the blockchain. Definitely, the system will be overloaded as more and more people keep coming. The after effect of this crowd is the reduction in transaction speed and probably increase in transaction fee which are highly unfavorable.

I know somewhere in your heart, if you are a newbie in the crypto world, this abnormalities is enough to scare you away from even investing in bitcoin. But fear not!! BEAM has figure out a way of dealing with such issues through the Mimblewimble protocol.

How beam Works

Beam is built based on the mimblewimble protocol and it was designed for the purpose of tackling some of the shortcomings of blockchain which are scalability and confidentiality. 

In terms of confidentiality, 

Beam ensures that balances and transactions been done in the blockchain by individuals and organisation are kept confidential and not exposed to public eyes except to authorised persons. 

While in scalability, beam deviced a way of merging intermediate outputs that do not have a direct effect over the final transaction output. This compacted size enables Beam to achieve faster and scalable Blockchain architecture

THE FEATURES OF BEAM

• Users information is strictly confidential. 
• It is super scalable, when compared to leading solutions, due to its compact size.
• Since beam doesn't require a trusted setup, mines block with the use of an Equihash Proof of Work algorithm and built using C++
• BEAM ensures that making transactions private does not affect the computing power of the blockchain.
• Has limited emissions, which it is able to achieve by periodic halving.
• BEAM does not store addresses on the blockchain and works with escrow.

BEAM: MIMBLEWIMBLE PROTOCOL 

Just like the way the founder of bitcoin is still a mystery to many, that is the same way the founder of the mimblewimble protocol also remains a mystery but one thing is certain about him, he is a fan of Harry Potter. 😂 

The MImbleWimble protocol aims at enabling privacy transactions while still able to provide a strong scaling solution to the blockchain so as to accommodate the increasing number of users. 

According to Greg Maxwell, the Mimblewimble protocol basically fulfills two functions:

• Confidential Transactions  

This  comprises of two major elements: binding and hiding. 

For instance, Peter Pan was given a chest but can only open it if he succeeds in destroying Captain hook at a particular time. If Peter Pan fulfill his mission at the required time given to him, it's only normal for the key to the chest be handed over to him. That's to prove the validity of the commitment. This is known as "binding". 

Unfortunately, he is unaware of the treasures hidden inside the chest except he has the key. This is known as hiding.

• Transaction Cut 

This make it possible for the blockchain to work with a much smaller amount of data since it does not need to know all the past information. In order words, no matter the tactics of an attacker, no single information can be gotten about the users involved. Also, minimizing the amount of data needed for the storage and verification of data makes the Mimblewimble compatible with smaller blocks.

Leadership Team 

Engineering Team

Advisor Team

CONCLUSION

The Beam project is very appealing, however some details are still in theory and have yet to be realized. It will be interesting to see what script they use to replace the Bitcoin Script as they work to develop this privacy focused Blockchain

For More Information

● Beam Website
● Beam Position Paper
● Mimblewimble Paper
● Beam YouTube
● Beam Telegram
● Beam Facebook
● Beam Github
● Beam Bitcointalk
● Beam Medium
● Beam Twitter

This is my entry for the @originalworks contest. Join contest here.

Beam2018

Twitter link:

https://mobile.twitter.com/SbamsonTammy/status/1039835155613904896