- Privacy in the Spotlight
SourceAfter the world economy collapse in 2008, people became more conscious about how and who manage their funds. The earliest bitcoin blockchain was built with this goal in mind, to give the owner control over his funds on the internet but what this system doesnt offer is allowing the user to verify the trust they hold in this public blockchain because they make every transactions available to the public without the user knowing much about it.
- Embracing the culture
What I mean is that a native website like youtube allows its users to control the type of content they will love to view on their timeline or a professional website like linkedIn can help users customise and control who views their profile. Some software even enables its users to restrict some regions. Users make use of this facilities to keep checks and balances on their online accounts
So the big question is why can't the user have the option to control a very sensitive issue like privacy on the blockchain as well. Dont forget that privacy and security goes hand-in-hand. Although attackers may find it hard to extract users information via the blockchain alone but they might be able to perpertrate evil once they are able to filtrate through other less secure channels such as exchanges,online commercial they make use of.
This could make an anonymous address on the blockchain to be linked with a user, thereby defeating the purpose why blockchain was instituted in the first place.
This leads us to a new technology that is tackling the issue of privacy, BEAM
Beam is a new decentralized, fully private and scalable blockchain which is based on the MimbleWimble protocol ( famously named after the tongue-tying spell from harryporter)
The BEAM Blockchain Explained
First, a brief chart of how it compares with native blockchains
Based on the MimbleWimble Protocol, the BEAM blockchain focuses on enabling privacy transactions without clogging up the network via these concepts; namely
Cryptographic commitment scheme
Which allows Beam to maintain confidential transactions on its blockchain. It achieves this by existing in two phases; hiding and blindingHiding : simply means keeping the transaction details away from the receiver Blinding : The transaction details can ONLY be viewed by the receiver when the sender authorises it via his keyTransaction Cut-Through
This allows the Beam blockchain to merge transactions accross blocks or simply put, it ONLY needs the current state of transactions instead of the entire history of all transactions as they occured( which is how bitcoin works).
What this does is
- To cut down the amount of data required to store and verify transactions
- It allows the protocol to work with smaller blocks ensuring reduced time of processing transactions
- Privacy
The BEAM blockchain address this security issue by ensuring users are able to control the data which are visible on the blockchain. Hence the Beam blockchain is private by default.
- A True Store of Value coin
Beam unlike bitcoin will prove itself to be a true store of value coin as it provides it users with all the necessary tools to maintain and manage who can view the transaction history of the account. Think of Beam as your incorruptible conventional bank account statement on the blockchain! Although the later is a channel that has been already corrupted by who knows?
- Fast, Secure and Highly-Scalable Blockchain
Built on a highly-scalable MimbleWimble Protocol; Beam will allow transactions to be verified in shorter time due to its ability to work with smaller blocks.
Other factors that contribute to why Beam blockchain is fast and adaptable for mass adoption are
- Informations such as the addresses of the users are not recorded on the blockchain
- Only Commitments generated from a transaction are stored on the blockchain
Every blockchain user who desire control over how his account is viewed and wants to reduce the risk of exposure from less secure channels,possibly custodians of personal information, to the outside world.
So this could serve as entry point for Beam blockchain adoption
- ICO investors
Buying into a new coin can be a risky business as some require that the investor submit a KYC while they also collect the wallet information of the investor.
A platform like BEAM could allow investors to invest in ICOs without revealing to the public the details of such transaction and hackers would have an impossible task of linking a userdata with such account.
- Peer-to-Peer transaction
Inorder to maintain your anonymity in this global economy; users have to give out little information to the person on the other side. One of those data is your address. Think of your wallet address as your bank account that is linked with your phone number, passport. The former has all those informations as well just that they are sparsed and attackers can try to analyse the vulnerabilities of other external platforms to sufficiently launch an attack on you.
On the Beam platform, Users can easily use the escrow functionalities to transact securely.
- Online Commercial
For online commercial platform looking to do business on the blockchain; the Beam platform might be the best option to protect their customer's right and maintain consistent business practice.
BEAM will easily allow users to verify their trust of patronising them on blockchain. By adjusting the informations they can have access to and monitoring trends; users can easily identify the right channel to use their funds
- Cryptocurrency Traders
Exchanging one cryptocurrency to another can be easily done without the need for exchanges. Using same escrow service functionalities, traders can easily exchange one cryptocurrency for another without a third party.
- Decentralized like bitcoin blockchain
- Full Privacy-owned funds
- Fast and secure transaction
- Escrow Services
- Atomic Swaps
- highly scalable blockchain to ensure cryptocurrency mass adoption
- Multiple private transaction enabled on the go
- User-controlled to choose transparency or privacy
- Uses Pedersen Commitment to represent inputs and outputs
- Increases blockchain overall credibility
- Untraceable transaction history
- No additional block size required
- Open sourced for developers to contribute
- Based on the "Scriptless Script" technology
- Mobile and desktop supported wallet
This simple flow chart demostrate how the system will work out
Carl&Sons is a popular commercial store that have being delivering online services to its numerous customer. But with the recent changes in technology, the management would love to move swiftly to a decentralized environment to better serve their customers.
But their customers are high net worth individuals who will love to enjoy the same level of privacy they have enjoyed on the native online marketplace. Enter Beam to make their integration into blockchain easy and smooth while still ensuring the full privacy of their customers.
With Beam every party is happy to do business in a fast, secure environment like a Beam.
Bitcoin blockchain has certainly lead the revolution of a fair decentralized economy that offers users control over how they manage their funds.
Until now, storing funds has being the major use case for cryptocurrency but now that we are about to witness the mainstream adoption for exchange of goods and services, there is need for users to define the limit of exposure of their transactional history to protect them from possible attacks on this numerous less secure outlets.
Beam is offering a practical solution to the problem of full privacy on the blockchain by allowing it users to verify their privacy.
- Check out a review of their C++ Code here by Coinbriefing
- Beam Website
- Beam Youtube
- Beam Position Paper
- Beam Medium
- Beam Telegram
- Beam Bitcointalk
- WimbleMimble Paper
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