BEAM; Privacy And Anonymity Exemplified On The Blockchain.
INTRODUCTION
A few months towards the end of 2017, I can safely say I was ignorant as to what cryptocurrency is or what are its uses apart from Satoshi Nakamoto’s brainchild, “The Bitcoin” being a popular crypto-token in my locality. Then a colleague of mine introduced me to Steemit and then I eagerly joined with the prospect of making some cool cash online and I must say I wasn’t disappointed at all. Steemit opened my eyes to an entirely new world and venturing further into this world, I began to understand that there are more tokens than the STEEM or STEEM BACKED DOLLAR (SBD) that meets the eye.
An understanding came upon me that there are ICOs, tokens, coins and cryptocurrencies too numerous to put a number on, are in existence since the advent of the Bitcoin era in 2008. The outbreak of numerous projects breaking bounds in the aspects of life ranging from technology to medicine and beyond; providing solutions to hitherto unscalable challenges.
THE PROBLEM
Now despite the fact of having numerous cryptocurrencies for users to choose from, many of these ICOs are degenerate and frivolous, not sticking to their roadmap and with the aim of just making off with investors’ money during its launch. The need arose whence many individuals became skeptical about investing in a particular ICO until a measure of assurance and credibility has been established by the ICO developers as being a trustworthy group.
Sad to say, only a few have crossed this roadblock and stayed on course with their roadmap as indicated in their research papers while a majority of the rest screwing up. Investors want to be able to carry out their transactions securely and hitch-free without the need of a middle-man or escrow service as Bitcoin intended with the creation of miners and nodes; great was the need for a decentralized system. This feature (unreliability upon a centralized figurehead) is still predominant in the Bitcoin blockchain but great as the believed anonymity of the blockchain, it was not totally secure despite having private and public keys for transactions. It was prone to data leaks and is left at the mercy of hackers.
Not forgetting that blockchains are characterized by heavy computing despite its added privacy features; a fertile ground for scalability issues to germinate. Now to meet the growing demand, I introduce Beam.
ALAS, THE MIMBLEWIMBLE PROTOCOL! A BEAM OF LIGHT
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As stated in the Position paper, Beam is a decentralized currency having a high level of functionality with a secure and strong privacy setup boasting of a top-notch anonymity. This is because of the cryptographic protocol utilized The Mimblewimble protocol
BEAM is a next generation confidential cryptocurrency based on an elegant and innovative
MimbleWimble protocol
Beam Position Paper, pg. 2
It is very important, the need for scalability and anonymity of a crypto-coin. This is due to the fact that, if not everyone, I would love my bank account balances and transaction history to be privy to only me and not accessible by other individuals. This is the reason behind the generation of the Beam currency.
THE MIMBLEWIMBLE PROTOCOL
According to the Mimblewimble whitepaper, creation of Beam is necessary for prevention of the user’s information from being accessible by the blockchain. And as a proof to its anonymity features, one can take a cue from the undisclosed identity of the creator since its establishment in August 2016.
There are two concepts on which its foundation is built upon;
- Confidential Transactions
- Transaction cut-through
Confidential Transactions
By establishing a commitment system using a cryptographic scheme, trustworthiness is made paramount. By utilizing the hiding and binding instruments, it ensures that no matter the time needed for the transaction to occur, at due time your commitment still stands and when it comes, that which you transacted is granted.
Transaction Cut-through
Take a scenario of car manufacture, you would agree with me that for a car to be completed, its various parts have to be fitted piece by piece. These pieces are worked on individually and are much easier to cut or shape independently and later fitted to a framework than if it were an entire entity having these same parts carved out. So it is with the blockchain; It is made up of transactions (the car’s smaller parts) with its inputs and outputs (the individual cutting and shaping). And taking a cross section of the vehicle (cutting through), you would find out that it is the joining together of all these smaller parts that make up the “big” car (in this case the blockchain).
A system is developed whence only the required transaction (using the analogy, the brakes for example) is displayed other than total transaction history as it occurred (the car making process from A-Z).
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The binding factor ensures that the transaction which weren’t carried out but still can still be actively received can still be tied to its particular user.
As the number of working hours, broken pieces that needed to be reformed or even injury sustained (which is less likely to occur) during the cars production is irrelevant to who buys the car at the end, so is the transaction address or amount exchanged not stored by the blockchain. Only the commitment is (from the analogy, the Cars manual).
Hence a lesser data to be stored and faster operability of the protocol.
BEAM’S FEATURES
- Autonomous control over private information by its users.
- Reduction of excessive computational demand yet still effective in transactional duties
- Elimination of the need for transaction history to be stored on the blockchain.
- No ICO, no premine, Beam supports numerous transaction categories
- Utlizability of the Equihash Proof-of -Work in mining blocks makes it compatible for users to adopt Beam.
- High Scalability level.
- Privacy is established with Beam
USE CASE
Stoney is an investor in cryptocurrency. He wants investments running into millions in several cryptocurrencies since he believes the future of banking lies within cryptocurrencies. His only setback is that he wants such transactions to be anonymous considering the large amount of investment so as not to draw attention to himself and be drawn into a web of cyber-attack. Moreso, he doesn’t want his identity to be disclosed as the investor so as not to be posed with physical threats.
Coming to know about Beam, he finds out his transactions can be handled privately and at the same time remain anonymous. All thanks to Beam.
BEAM’s APPLICATIONS
Beam finds applications as its performs;
- Escrow services for transactions, atomic swaps, as well as time locked transactions.
- In banking, industries, accounting firms, and even research labs, can utilize Beam’s cut-through technology for private and anonymous transactions.
CONCLUSION
Through beam people like Mr. Stoney have obtained a private and secure way to carry out transaction on the blockchain. This privacy being aided by the fact that Beam blockchain has the ability to deal with smaller blocks with the elimination of irrelevant adresses history and transaction amounts with the retention of only the commitment, and this has resulted in a faster and anonymous means of transaction system. Kudos to Beam
More Information & Resources
- Beam Website
- Beam Position Paper
- Mimblewimble Paper
- Beam YouTube
- Beam Telegram
- Beam Facebook
- Beam Github
- Beam Bitcointalk
- Beam Medium
- Beam Twitter
beam2018
Incredibly alluring colour.
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