OriginalWorks sponsored contest: Beam

Beam; scalable confidential cryptocurrency

They define themselves as the next generation cryptocurrency based on an elegant and innovative protocol called MimbleWimble.

Among the reasons that explain why Beam is so special, I can find that it allows users complete control of their privacy. That is because them decide which information to share and to whom, when making their transactions. All this always within the legal framework. All transactions will be private, and no information of those transactions will be stored in the Blockchain thanks to the protocol that will be used.

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Beam' Use and Technology

With its technology it will allow the implementation of a variety of types of transactions, such as, atomic swapping, escrow and time-locked transactions.

It will have a wallet available for desktop and mobile designed for a routine use of both individual users and small businesses

Although they don't know yet the exact numbers of how many transactions they will make per second, they say it will be slightly better than Bitcoin and the private currencies. But they emphasize the fact that it will not have a great performance as a means of exchange, which makes us think that it can be used mainly as a "store of value" instrument and in the future its performance could be improved by adding a second layer to the chain.

The protocol that it uses, called MimbleWimble, helps avoid a computational overload by allowing its Blockchain to be of lesser magnitude than others because the users data will not be stored in their transactions. This will allow superior scalability of the Beam blockchain.

The mini blocks generated in Beam are mined using the Equihash (PoW) algorithm. It was integrated into Zcash in 2016 for reasons of security, privacy and because it provided a very efficient verification. This algorithm also contributes to the democratization or decentralization of the mining process in the hands of a few first-class miners with specialized equipment. With this, the intention of Beam is to ensure a broad adoption by the miners, guaranteed with an algorithm already proven in the industry.

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Supply and Distribution

It will be open source, implemented from begining, community-governed, and backed by the Beam Growth Pool: where the 20% of block mining rewards goes to this pool to incentivize development and promotion.

The issuance of its currency is limited, using periodic halving with its entirety of coins, which will eventually be 210 Million. And they will not made an Initial Offer of Currency (ICO).

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Under the Hood: MimbleWimble

Regarding its aforementioned protocol, MimbleWimble, it's known that it was published by an anonymous person in the Satoshi Nakamoto style, with the aim of making confidential transactions allowing only the transaction to be seen in the blockchain in a superficial manner without deepening the personal data of each user.

In the following image, taken from the official Beam website, the protocol is explained in more detail: