Data Security is an all-time issue of concern. And, this cuts across virtually every sector. Finance, health, sports, technology and the list continues.
In fact, the fountain of digital assets; bitcoin and its pact in the revamping of traditional financial systems is not an exemption.
Prior to bitcoin's creation, over 9 years ago, peer-to-peer financial transactions was unimaginable. But, the bitcoin alternative came in full stature of all its notable features, including a decentralized ecosystem, transparency and immutable smart contracts .
Truly, bitcoin has immensely contributed to growth and evolution of the financial sector as we know it. As a matter of fact, it was not until recent that the issue of bitcoin's transparency became a central discuss in the cryptosphere.
No doubt, the technology is good and all but the fact that it is publicly-sourced and that the full details of every p2p transaction on the blockchain, including timestamp, amount, and address is always made public, breaches user privacy. As a result, a lot of users are caught in a quagmire, not knowing whether to price the host of benefits derived from continued participation in the cryptocurrency sphere more than their innate desire for privacy. Likewise, a number of potential entrants have since vowed never to be part of the sphere because of same reason.
The cryptocurrency sphere is growing fast, becoming widely adopted in many quarters. In China for example, more than 70% of payments today are facilitated through mobile means and this does not include credit or debit cards.
In a bid to maintain this growing momentum and to the end that it is not short-lived, it is quintessential to quickly arrest the shortcomings of existing bitcoin technology. The following is a concise review of beam; a new generation cryptocurrency that will compensate for the bespoke shortcomings.
What is Beam
Beam is a novel cryptocurrency that is uniquely built to secure users' data ensuing from financial transactions. Although for the time being, it's use will be restricted to that of store of value, hopefully in the near future it can be used as medium of exchange.
Furthermore, beam is strictly based on the recently developed mimblewimble technology, which is remarkably designed to mitigate the issue of privacy, scalability and excess energy consumption associated with the existing blockchain technology.
Higlights of the MimbleWimble Technology
Similar to bitcoin's blockchain, it comprises of an array of arbitrary blocks linked in a chain. Only that here, microblocks are now embedded into each block in chain linkage, such that the work (proof of work protocol) is now distributed to more, but each is by far too inconspicuous to be detailed on the blockchain. The implication is, only basic data can be publicly-accessed.
Again, the PoW protocol and encryption type adopted on mimblewimble consumes lesser energy as such, it is more efficient than existing technology.
Confidentiality
Today, user information priviledge is largely being exploited by the very parties that should be the custodians. Talking of the likes of Facebook, Instagram, and co. Bitcoin technology is also a culprit in this matter. By storing all the details of every financial transaction on the blockchain, it is open-sourced and so anyone can easily access it as well as trace down the originating address.
With beam however, users can choose to peg levels of privacy as they please. This way they get to control the public's access to their financial transaction information and, confidentiality is restored.
Higher Efficiency
In lieu of the fact that beam is based on mimblewimble, its processing speed is inevitably faster than bitcoin especially as it relies on PoW protocol.
User experience would be smooth and stress free in light of this because lesser time would be required to complete transactions. Again, this means that the energy requirement would be reduced when compared to bitcoin.
Use Case
Tom is a freelance content writer with some cryptocurrency portfolios as most of his dealings are with crypto-related platforms. But he receives most of his payments in, ether (ETH) as per his default demand. This way he gets to directly scale his portfolio without incurring extra charge on his end.
Recently, Tom was going through his transaction details on etherscan and then it hit him at that moment that he was not really secured, in that anyone could as well easily access these same details and trace the address back to him. It dawned on him that every detail had been an outright exposure.
In a bid to remedy this, he began to search for an alternative and then he stumbled on beam one day. Through beam, he was able to enjoy his privacy once again and live truly free.
Conclusion
From the foregoing, it is safe to say that beam will prove to be a giant stride in the cryptocurrency sphere, especially as it is focused on restoring user information confidentiality.
And hopefully, the world of finance will scale to previously unimaginable heights in light of this.
ROADMAP
TEAM
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