Introduction

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Hello everyone, it has been an incredible journey so far on the crypto academy, and I am glad to be blogging once more as a part of this community. This week's topic addressed a vital issue that every human being can relate to in their everyday lives. A person's privacy goes a long way to determine how much security that person enjoys. This concept relates in so many ways to the financial security of funds owned by individuals, whether with cryptocurrencies or the conventional financial system.

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Although, the creation of cryptocurrencies that runs on blockchain technology has redefined how many people handle their finance. Blockchain technology gave rise to a more secure, transparent, and faster way to transact with cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Etherum, and many other Altcoins. However, its transparency robbed users of their privacy, which led to the development of the first privacy coin in 2014, a fork of bitcoin popularly known as DASH.

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These privacy coins adopt several methods to hide their users' identities during transactions to promote that users' privacy. Some of these methods include the use of;

• The zk-snark method uses unique cryptography to encrypt and hide information relating to transactions made with the coin.

• The stealth address where the coin creates another single-use address called a stealth address prevents the link-up of other transactions.

• The cojoin method where transactions from various addresses are centralized, verified, and distributed to multiple receivers with different receivers without disclosing vital information.

• The Mimblewimble uses unique processing abilities to hide details and identities of addresses that verified those transactions.

• The ring signature combines multiple users' addresses into one anonymous transaction without disclosing the identities and details of any address that verified any of the transactions. Well-known coins like Monero use this method

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Apart from DASH, created in 2014, many other privacy coins were made, like Monero, Beam, Zcash, and many other currencies. However, in this post, our primary focus will be shifted to Beam coins.

Q1; Choose A Privacy Coin And Perform A Fundamental Analysis Of The Coin In Detail.

Beam Privacy Coin.

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Mimblewimble, popularly called The Harry Potter spell, is a cryptographic protocol that hides transactions' values and metadata and simultaneously improves scalability. Recently, the implementation of the Lelantus MW has caused an improvement in the privacy offered by the Beam coin and rupturing the linkability of transactions.

In addition to the Mimblewimble, Beam uses the dandelion protocol. This technology helps hide the network traffic activity, thereby making the pathways through which transactions are dispersed on a decentralized network more random and difficult to track.

The Beam cryptocurrency has many other exciting features like;

• It can perform a wide range of transactions like time-locked transactions, atomic swapping, and escrow.
• It offers unique opt-in audibility, which allows auditors to inspect attached documents with approval from the user.
• Its wallet is compatible with all the primary OS like windows, android, and MAC.

Economically, Beam has proved to be an excellent investment option for cryptocurrency investors, with an overall market capitalization of over 20 million US dollars and an all-time high value of $3.21 as of 2019.

Q2: describe the steps in creating a wallet for the privacy coin of your choice.

Creating A Beam Wallet

A Beam wallet is easy to create as it is available on various app stores like the Apple store, Google play store, and Microsoft app store. The following guidelines will help any user create a Beam wallet.

• The first step to creating a Beam wallet is by downloading the wallet app itself. You can do that by visiting the Google Playstore on an Android device, or the Appstore on the iPhone. Once the app is fully launched, locate the search icon at the top and search for "Beam Wallet". Select the one that is similar to the screenshot below, and download it.

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Once it is downloaded, you can click on the "Open" button on Playstore to launch the app. You will see the interface below, asking if you need to create a new wallet or to import an already existing wallet. Since we are creating a new wallet, we will just go along with that option.

To create a new wallet, you have to accept the terms and conditions for creating your seed phrase by simply tapping 'I understand', and then going on to save your seed phrases in a secure place. I recommend writing it down on a piece of paper and storing it in a safe place.

You also need to confirm that you have securely written down your seed phrases by entering them individually on the confirmation screen.

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The next step is to create a strong password by following the instructions outlined on the screen, confirm the password then tap on 'start using your wallet.' Note that this created password will help you gain access to the local wallet on your device. You will not need this password if you needed to import the same wallet to another device.

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Once the wallet is successfully created, you can now start making your transactions with your privacy assured.

Q3: Explain the Reason You Choose the Privacy Coin (State the Advantages and Disadvantages)

Why I Chose Beam Cryptocurrency.

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I was attracted to the Beam coin when I first got to know about its beautiful features. Besides its speed, ease of transaction, and privacy offered, it has many features that made my financial experience a breeze.
Some of these features include;

• It's ultimately an anonymous network
• Its ability to perform a wide range of transactions
• Its ability to carry out instant payments
• The in-wallet app store.

These fantastic features make the advantages heavily outweigh its disadvantages.

Advantages of the Beam Cryptocurrency

There are so many advantages of the Beam cryptocurrency, and they include;

• The use of the Mimblewimble privacy tech gives Beam the unique attribute of not storing any information on the blockchain. This attribute ensures maximum privacy by default.
• The use of 'scriptless script' technology allows Beam to perform transactions like atomic swap and time-locked transactions.
• Beam has an opt-in audibility option that allows flexible privacy.
• With Beam wallet, you can exchange multiple asset types.
• The Beam cryptocurrency is a long-term player: This is because of its open-source characteristics and also being backed by the Beam growth pool, which gets 20% of all block mining rewards
• The Beam system is widely compatible because it runs on the Equihash algorithm and many other fascinating tools.
  The advantages of the Beam privacy coins are so much that the drawbacks are almost insignificant.

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Drawbacks of the Beam cryptocurrency.

One major drawback of the Beam cryptocurrency is that it was not designed as a regular cryptocurrency meant for day-to-day transactions. Instead, it was more uniquely intended to be a store of value. This drawback is mainly blamed on the transaction speed, which is at about 17 transactions per second. This transaction speed can be likened to that of bitcoin.

Apart from this slight drawback, the future of Beam is looking very bright even as more innovations will be introduced in the future.

Conclusion

During the past few decades, there has been more awareness about the right to financial privacy. The conventional economic systems first introduced personal safes, and now through the decades, we find ourselves basking in the sea of decentralized privacy cryptocurrencies. This evolutionary trend in finance might see privacy coins dominate cryptocurrencies' financial sphere soon. However, transparency and audibility are still important features of any successful economic system. Therefore privacy coins like Beam will be an essential part of business globally in time to come.

Finally, I am very grateful for being part of this well-structured lecture by prof @levycore. My research has been a great eye-opener to investment in privacy coins. Thanks to the crypto academy, this season has been fun and enlightening.