BEAM: ENSURING YOUR PRIVACY IS RESPECTED

INTRODUCTION
I believe my privacy should be and is my basic right, and this is a primary reason why many individuals embraced the blockchain revolution.
It’s been almost a decade since it started, but as time has gone on, the issue of privacy on the blockchain has not been tackled adequately.

BEAM shares this concern, and hopes that they can ensure everyone’s privacy is protected, and they should be able to decide what can be seen, and when this data can be viewed.

BEAM is a scalable confidentiality cryptocurrency and it is based on the MimbleWimble Protocol. It also ensures that users settings are set to “private” by default.

WHAT ENSURES BEAM STANDS OUT IN THE CROWD

The user is in complete control of his/her privacy, and have total control over how their data can be accessed.
BEAM does not limit the efficiency of the blockchain, while ensuring users privacy is maintained.
It does not require a trust setup
BEAM mines blocks using Equihash Proof-of-Work Algorithm.
Limited emissions.
Highly scalable, and has a compact blockchain size.
No premine and no ICO.
Created from scratch, using C++.
Support for assorted transactions, such as atomic swaps, escrows and time locked transactions.

BEAM makes use of Equihash rather than SHA256, because it does not require much resources like the latter. When mainnet launches, BEAM will also release a desktop wallet. Other features, such as a mobile wallet will follow soon after.

WHAT IS MIMBLEWIMBLE?
MimbleWimble is a protocol that was created in August 2016, and it is based on the deductions of Greg Maxwell, which are Confidential Transactions and Transaction Cut-through.

MimbleWimble is able to implement Confidential Transactions by making use of cryptographic commitment scheme. It has two primary properties, which are hiding and binding.
Binding refers to the process of making a commitment that ensures both parties have an agreement, but the other party at the receiving end doesn’t have a way to view the data. The party at the giving end has something like a master password, which he must give to the receiver, to enable him ensure that the commitment made is true to its original form and agreement (hiding).

The commitment scheme MimbleWimble makes use of is known as Pederson Commitment Scheme and it is able to carry this out using Elliptic Curve Cryptography in the form of

C=r * G+v * H.

Here, r refers to the blinding factor, which is the master password, v, G and H are generator points on a particular elliptic curve.

Blocks can be viewed as one giant transaction. Going through and merging all outputs in between-within single blocks and multiple blocks. When this is carried out all over the blockchain, we end up with a system that needs to retain only the current state of UTXO (Unspent Transaction Output).

Proving ownership of the UTXO requires just the unique blinding factor and value; storing the entire history of the blockchain is not needed. This ensures that users data is totally protected, and no leaks can occur.

USE CASE
Josh has been buying into cryptocurrencies since the early days of bitcoin. He has been concerned about his privacy, the way everything is open on the blockchain, and he can’t do much about it. A primary reason why he jumped on the decentralized bandwagon was to be better protected.

Josh dreams of living the digital nomad lifestyle at some point in the future, and has been looking for a way to store up value, and ensure they are retained privately.

Stumbling on BEAM on twitter, he decides to try it out, and finds out that private mode is a default setting on BEAM.
He had slowed down on investments for quite sometime, but with BEAM, he can resume stacking up, and getting closer to setting aside enough funds for his future.
BEAM ensures that he no longer has to worry about his privacy.

CONCLUSION
Current blockchain solutions are lacking privacy because anyone can easily view transactions initiated, without asking for permission, seeing this is the default setting. In some cases, this can be mightily embarrassing, examples of such are corporate transactions and payment of salaries.

Hacks and loss of data via exchanges are merchants also go to show that users privacy needs to be upheld, and should be a primary concern.

This has a negative impact, because it basically ensures users do not make use of decentralized options, when they need to store up value. It is essentially working against the growth of the industry. Fixing this will ensure that more fiat is pumped in, and the market will grow.

Being able to set privacy levels ensures that users can easily switch settings as the need arises, especially when information needs to be made public to a few, or the general public.

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FOR MORE INFORMATION & RESOURCES:Beam
Beam Position Paper
Mimblewimble Paper
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