What Is Beam (BEAM)?
BEAM is a confidential privacy crypto asset. It is based on the hybrid LelantusMW protocol. The main aim of the Beam crypto project is to improve confidentiality in the field of decentralized finance (DeFi). You can see the current BEAM price featured on the Beam price chart above.
The project aims to provide users with safe and completely confidential transactions. This means that all transactions on Beam are private by default and that no private information is disclaimed to others, except when users choose to do that. Besides, Beam supports atomic swaps, escrow, offline and online transactions, time-locked transfers, and many other types of transactions due to the Scriptless Script technology that it employs​.
Additionally, Beam allows users to create confidential dApps through the Beam Virtual Machine. It features the Contract Shader and the App Shader, which enable the creation of “shaded” dApps and the integration of Beam wallets into these dApps. Beam provides its users with desktop, mobile, web, and common line crypto wallets.
How Does Beam Work?
Beam combines MimbleWimble with Lelantus to create a hybrid protocol called LelantusMW.
MimbleWimble is a protocol that was proposed in the IRC research channel #bitcoin-wizards as a privacy protocol to be implemented on Bitcoin. It is unique because of two features – the blinding factor and Coinjoin. The blinding factor randomly multiplies the amount sent in the transaction by a huge number, this way masking the actual amount that is sent. Coinjoin, on the other hand, combines all network transactions into a single confirmation pool. Both of these features make it impossible to track senders or receivers of transactions.
Lelantus, on the other hand, was created as a protocol to improve Zcoin’s privacy. It utilizes standard cryptographic assumptions to enable the creation of an anonymous shielded UTXO pool.
LelantusMW expands the UTXO anonymity set and offers one-sided payments, enabling sending and receiving Beam tokens without the need for the engagement required by Mimblewimble.
It’s also worth mentioning the consensus algorithm employed by Beam. It uses BeamHash III, which is a modified version of the Proof-of-Work algorithm. It is the third, and last, modification of the BeamHash algorithm. Anyone with the necessary hardware can mine Beam using a mining pool or a solo mining technique. Besides, it’s designed to allow a smooth transition from GPU mining to ASIC mining.
Who Founded Beam?
The Beam crypto project was founded by Alex Romanov and Alex Zaidelson in 2018.
Alex Romanov has a degree in computer science. In the past, he worked as a team leader at RadView, Boxee, and Magistro, as well as an R&D at Collactive, Music Lab LTD, and Personalics.
Alex Zaidelson has a degree in finance, entrepreneurship, and philosophy. Prior to co-founding Beam, he was a software engineer at such companies as Demantra, Softwatch, and Mercury Interactive. Besides, he also co-founded Nareos and Wikitup. In addition to that, he worked with such projects as WeFi, CIRTech Fund, and SimilarWeb. As of writing this, he is working with realizeMD, PerfectScale, UNI.DIAMONDS, Agora Labs, and VirtuSwap.
Tokenomics of BEAM
The max supply of BEAM coins is 262,800,000. BEAM coins were not premined and there were no ICOs held. New BEAM coins are mined through its PoW consensus mechanism. However, to avoid the decrease of BEAM price due to excess circulating supply, the Beam network employs periodic halving, which reduces the mining rewards by half.
Don't forget to take a look at the aforementioned Beam price chart if you want to see the current BEAM price.
