Imagine the entire world could view Mr. A's transactions with Mr. B and then could proceed to check the balances of both of them. This is in fact how public blockchains such as Bitcoin are built. A build-up like this is not far from placing a bounty on the heads of Mr. A and B.
Although Bitcoin and other Cryptocurrencies promised the world Peer to Peer (P2P) transactions, they forgot to mention that they opened our bedroom windows to the world, showing off our panties.š
Traditional monetary system may have included third parties, but it placed a curtain over the window that only the seemingly trusted third party - the bank in this case - could see through.
To put into perspective what this means in the Bitcoin network, let's debunk the misconception of Bitcoin network. Many has thought that the Bitcoin network was private but it really isn't. It's only somewhat anonymous. It stores addresses on it's blockchain which it uses to find wallets to complete transactions and with the right blockchain explorer which are not difficult to find online, all these transactions can easily be seen.
Via portals through which Bitcoin network is accessed, which requires Know Your Customer (KYC) procedures, the blockchain losses its anonymity, as addresses can be tied to an Identity without much difficulty.
This clearly shows that the blockchain is a bit of a blabbermouth. All for the sake of tracking and verifying transactions, It exposes its users and their funds to threats and dangers and also bulks up itself by storing addresses and transaction histories since the beginning of the blockchain. The awareness of this has deterred many from cryptocurrency adoption, hence its volatility and has even caused the market to lose a huge chunk of its capitalization, in cases of exchange hacks.
For miners, the bulkiness of most blockchains has hampered new nodes from joining in and syncing with the network that would have improved transaction processing and enhanced scalability. The size of the Bitcoin blockchain network is estimated to be about 190GB currently and it's calculated to continue growing by 52.5GB per year, posing a serious problem for the scalability and efficiency of the network.
Having clearly shown that most cryptocurrencies and the blockchain tech washes and hangs our linen in public, dirty or clean, it would be nice to have all the benefits of this technology while retaining true anonymousness, where our "bedroom" transaction windows are completely shut at will to undesirable third parties and our dirty or clean panties or linens washed and hanged however we want it, public or private.š
As more persons come onboard the blockchain technology, either as miners or just users, it would also be encouraging to have a network that handles transactions effectively and efficiently, even as the transactions volume increase, without considerably bloating the blockchain for ease of downloading, storing and syncing with the blockchain by new miners.
Without further ado, I present to you a project that has considered these problems, proposed and implemented a unique solution that would achieve confidentiality and scalability simultaneously. With a standing ovation, I beseech you to join me welcome; BEAM - A truly confidential and scalable cryptocurrency.
What is BEAM ?
BEAM is a confidential scalable cryptocurrency which is built upon the MimbleWimble protocol aimed to primarily be a store of value initially. It gives users complete control over their transaction data. Giving them the authority over their transactions visibility, users are free to decide to which third-party can view information about a transaction. To top-up privacy, the BEAM blockchain does not store addresses or any information of the sender or receiver of a transaction on the blockchain.
Achieving confidentiality usually birthed the problem of more data which bloated the blockchain concerned hitherto because transaction outputs required multi-kilobyte proofs on every output which would be stored forever on the blockchain. BEAM achieves confidentiality and conceals necessary transaction value without this block-bloating penalty by using the special features of its MimbleWimble BEAM blockchain such as Transaction cut-through feature. With this, BEAM will achieve a compact blockchain which will maintain and improve it's performance as users and miners come on board the blockchain, hence it's scalability.
The MimbleWimble Blockchain Protocol
As regards the blockchain being a blabbermouth, what better way to solve this problem than to cast a spell named Mimblewimble borrowed from the Harry Potter movie on it that prevents it from talking about all users' information.š
I was as suprised as you are now when I found out that magic spells now work on technology.š
Just kiddingš, Mimblewimble is a blockchain protocol built by anonymous dev that calls himself Voldemort, Tom Elvis Jedusor (Jedusor is french for Voldemort) in full. On realization of how the transaction visibility would allow monitoring and control of lower classes and also subject individuals to danger, Jedusor proposed the Mimblewimble protocol to zip up the blabbermouth of the current blockchain structure by building upon the previous works of Dr. Greg Maxwell, Shen Noether, Nicolas van Saberhagen and Dr. Yuan Horas Mouton.
The Mimblewimble BEAM blockchain has basically two focuses which allows it combine scalability and confidentiality with the immutability and incorruptibility of the Bitcoin blockchain. They include;
ā¢ Confidential Transactions and One-Way Aggregate Signatures (OWAS)
ā¢ Merging Transactions across Blocks
Confidential Transactions and OWAS
The transaction graph of bitcoin blockchain yielded much vital information under careful analysis which intruded users privacy. In order to solve this, the transaction graph needed to be made faceless, blinded or confused in order to bring achieve confidentiality of the network. Although Dr. Maxwell's encryption of amounts and bitcoin combination went a long way to confuse the graph, It had the problem of interactivity. The solution to this interactivity problem was the OWAS - a pairing-based cryptography - but it had its own problem of being slow and less trustworthy. "Voldemort" brought in his ingenuity in, to modify Dr. Maxwell's confidential transactions allowing it to be able to combine transactions without interaction. A modification which was quite similar to the OWAS which involved eliminating the powerful Bitcoin script which hampered merging.
Merging Transactions across Blocks.
The scalability of the Bitcoin network is grossly affected by it's size and the growth of it. To validate its transactions, one needed to download the entire blockchain because to verify it's final state, the output of the previous state had to be known because it signed the next. Through merging of transactions across blocks with some "glue" data, a solution first proposed by Dr Yuan, Intermediate outputs as soon as they were destroyed, could be eliminated from the blockchain therefore reducing it's size.
You might ask, How then could the transactions of the blockchain validated?š¤
Jedusor innovatively applied a principle somewhat similar to that of conservation of mass, only that this was for value. Hence we could call it conservation of value. He reasoned that all that would be needed to validate a transaction was a balance of the value of the blockchain and so this entailed just having information on the new money that entered the system (new money in each block as in Bitcoin or Monero or peg-ins for side chains) and then the final unspent outputs, the rest could be discarded or cut through.
As regards this block conversation of value, to validate a transaction, a verifier would need to basically sum up all output commitments and the explicit fees taken and substract it from the input commitment which should result to zero (0) to prove the Chain is good. Pure Genius!
However as earlier mentioned, the transaction values are not left bare naked, they are blinded and interacted with as commitments e.g
C = rG + vH
C is the Pedersen commitment, G and H are fixed elliptic curve generators, v is the value and r is a secret random blinding key.
These focuses of the Mimblewimble BEAM blockchain births the simple analogy of passing a box from Mr. A via Mr. B to Mr. C. The item which the box contains remains unknown until the Mr A provides Mr. B with both the box and the blinding key. After Mr. B unlocks this box to reveal it's value, he confirms it because that value has previously been agreed upon. Similar transactions happen between B and C, but then validate the A, B, C block, only A and C would be required as explained fundamentally above.
Having described the implementation on which [BEAM] is based, the features it derives from it are solid and mind-burgling!
Features of BEAM
Basing BEAM on the Mimblewimble implementation gives the BEAM blockchain technology to some impressive features and opens it to some unbelievably wonderful possibilities. Some of these features include;
Confidentiality
BEAM treats user transaction data with high priority and as such it does not store user's data on the blockchain whilst not failing to give users the transaction visibility authority.
Versatility
The scriptless script technology birthed by eliminating the powerful Bitcoin script which hampered flexibility and block merging enables BEAM to carry out a wide variety of transaction types, ranging from simple transaction of value to atomic swapping and time-locked transactions.
Scalability
Transaction cut-through focus of the Mimblewimble protocol drastically collapses the total size of the BEAM blockchain in many orders if magnitude relative to the others. The lessens the overall computational overhead needed to handle it's transactions and would allow the blockchain handle volumes of transactions in very large order of magnitudes that would be problem for other blockchain networks.
Sustainability
BEAM blockchain is not some hardfork of any other blockchain. It is built from scratch in C++ by a team of experienced devs with the code open-sourced, governed by the the BEAM community and backed by the BEAM growth pool which reserves 20% of block mining rewards for incentivizing Community Development and promotion, to facilitate an endless lifespan which would adapt to the changes the market desires.
Usability
BEAM launches a user-friendly UI wallet application which can be used on a wide range of devices and operating systems. This includes Windows, Linux and Mac on Desktops while also supporting mobile devices. Several wallet formats like this kind BEAM releases, helps drive financial system to a more cashless level that allows for On-The-Go (OTG) transactions, anywhere and anytime. The wallet also contains a built-in dashboard
Compatibility
BEAM uses the memory oriented Equihash Proof of Work (PoW) mining algorithm which was designed by Alex Biryukov and Dmitry Khovratovich. This industry-proven mining algorithm is adopted globally by miners and as such BEAM will be broadly compatible with the GPU miners Community.
Behind the Curtains
Although the transaction between Mr A and B seems like a quite simple entertainment show, with a A and B having full Confidentiality of course, Here are the inner workings of the entire process.
BEAM is not just a theoretical Idea that's yet to leave the books, it is practical and already has a testnet.
BEAM Benefits.
ā¢ BEAM provides a truly anonymous and private transaction channels that eliminates the visibility of undesirable third parties.
ā¢ Its Transaction cut-through mechanism, allows it to handle way more volume of transactions, while the keeping the entire size of the blockchain as small as possible by discarding destroyed intermediate outputs.
ā¢ Backed and governed by a Growth pool and Community, in addition to its versatility, BEAM will seamlessly adapt to the changes in its market, taking the shape desired by the market hence no need for Hardforks.
ā¢ BEAM will easily be adopted because of it's friendly usability and global Compatibility.
Use Case.
Dayo won 5BTCs, since then he has been getting several unsubscribed messages in his mail and even sometimes gets locked out. He realized that this was a preliminary hacking process because he had gotten the attention of hackers through his little fortune. But how they knew? He never knew.
Embracing the Idea of BEAM, He completely eliminates any third-party that constantly peeped at his Transactions. Now he's transferred his funds to the secured and anonymous BEAM wallet and the hackers have no idea where the funds are located now.
BEAM Comparison
BEAM Team
BEAM Advisors
BEAM Investors
BEAM Roadmap
More Information & Resources.
- BEAM Website
- BEAM Position Paper
- Mimblewimble Paper
- BEAM Youtube
- BEAM Telegram
- BEAM Facebook
- BEAM GitHub
- BEAM BitcoinTalk
- BEAM Medium
- BEAM Twitter
- BEAM Originalworks
All Images are Credited to BEAM
Tweet Link:
https://twitter.com/cedric_egbon/status/1039329475958329344?s=19
- cedric_egbon
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