INTRODUCTION

Privacy is one thing people spend a lot to protect, companies, institutions, government agencies and many more take privacy matters very serious. Even as it regards finances, people would love to have their privacy intact and not worry about their financial and personal information made so public.
The advent of bitcoin has ushered in many other projects which are also based on the blockchain platform and the blockchain which is been used is due to its security and privacy as regards storage, but in reality, it seems the privacy issue isn’t sorted out as expected.

HOW DOES THE BITCOIN BLOCKCHAIN WORK?

There is a widely spread wrong notion which I also believed that every transaction done using the bitcoin platform is private, personal and highly anonymous because the keys generated, whether private or public were randomly generated and were in pairs. This key is used to generate and address for the purpose of monitoring and controlling the transaction which the details is stored on a public ledger permanently and of course – transparently.
Every transaction by any user on the Bitcoin platform can be traced from the balance up to the very inception of a blockchain. The validity of every transaction is traceable to the nodes and miners of bitcoin – which is their major function. They ensure that all parties involved in any transaction must come to a unilateral decision before it is approved. This is why most people choose the blockchain platform, but the privacy downside keeps staring at us in the face.
The anonymity of users can be blown open by just the gathering and piecing together of data on the blockchain, exchanges carried out, merchants’ deals, OCT deals etc. all these leads to data leaks and since they are stored in a permanent and transparent form on a public ledger, any user’s information can be known with all transactions exposed. These privacy issues pose a big challenge and this led to brainstorming and research for answers and alas, BEAM was discovered and it brings to rest every privacy issues, shall we talk about BEAM?

WHAT IS BEAM

BEAM is a next generation confidential cryptocurrency based on an elegant and innovative MimbleWimble protocol.Beam Position Paper

The BEAM platform ensures the private storage of values. As defined in what BEAM is, it said it works on the MimbleWimble protocol, shall we talk about it?

The MimbleWimble Protocol:

MimbleWimble? Sounds familiar? Oh yeah, that is a spell from the Harry Potter book series. It was established and published in August 2016 and it is a protocol which ensures a very smart way of keeping blockchain transactions private and confidential. This protocol as originally proposed by Dr. Greg Maxwell, works perfectly on two concepts, they are:

Confidential Transactions and
Transaction Cut – through

Confidential Transactions

It is carried out with a cryptographic commitment scheme enforced by two properties – Hiding and Binding. It is also known as Pedersen commitment and it is achieved by the use of Elliptic Curve Cryptography as expressed in this form:
C = r * G + v * H

Where
C = Pedersen commitment
r = binding factor
v = secret key hiding the value
G and H are generator point on a specific elliptic curve

I bet this tech gibberish may not be properly understood, let me explain in simpler terms: A soldier going on a mission and his daughter is sulking because he won’t be around on her birthday and no one would give her her favourite gift. To make her feel happy, he gives a box enclosed with her favourite candy but it is locked and can only be opened on her birthday, to prove to her that it isn’t just scam and you are committed to seeing your promise through, you hand her the key to be opened only on that day. She doesn’t know the contents until she opens it. The commitment to her is referred to as “binding” and the process of opening it is “hiding”.

Transaction Cut – Through

A transaction can be said to be “cut – through” when the unification of all intermediate outputs that exist in a block and when it is applied to the entire blockchain, it results into a system that only needs current state of transactions rather than the entire transaction history. The MimbleWimble protocol helps to prove that a transaction which is received by a user but is still on the blockchain belongs to such a user through the binding factor and the message values. And once the transaction is created, the commitment is stored only on the blockchain instead of the address of the users or the amounts exchanged. This data stored is small which in turn helps MimbleWimble to work faster.

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THINGS TO CONSIDER ABOUT BEAM

To ensure that existing miners using GPU can adopt the BEAM project, BEAM uses the equihash pow algorithm. This enables effective management of mining nodes.
BEAM can be implemented using C++ programming language and to foster sustainability, 20 percent of mining rewards goes to the BEAM growth pool. This enhances its development and promotion.
BEAM promotes usability due to the possession of a dashboard that enables the effective management of budgeted finances.
With BEAM, users can determine which of their information can be available and who can have access to it.
The scriptless script technology available in BEAM supports multiple transaction such as escrow etc.

USE CASE AND APPLICATIONS

USE CASE 1 – FINANCE INDUSTRY

Mr Chika has two vicious wives waiting to pounce on his wealth if he dies or try to divorce them, so he wants to make most of his finances and transactions private, the conventional financial system isn’t helping matters, he is introduced to BEAM by Benny Walker and he joyously sleeps in peace without fear of his wives.

USE CASE 2 – RELIGIOUS ORGANIZATION/CHARITY ORGANIZATION

Mr Eagle is a Kingdom financier who gives heavily to God’s work and also to charity organizations to help needy people but he doesn’t like his identity being exposed. He is in some sort of dilemma but as usual, Benny Walker also known as greenewalks intimated him about BEAM and he can do his donations seamlessly without his identity being exposed.

CONCLUSION

The advent of bitcoin has been embraced by individuals, corporate bodies, government agencies, financial institutions and many more. One of the reasons it was embraced was anonymity but as time keeps passing by, it became evident that anonymity is gradually becoming a façade because transactions can now be traced back, but everyone would actually love their financial dealings kept private, this is exactly what BEAM sets out to solve.
So, if you want your privacy protection rights,and in comparison with other blockchains as shown in the image below, BEAM is here for you and trumps all.

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