Sponsored Writing Contest: BEAM (by @originalworks

BEAM
Beam is a next generation confidential cryptocurrency based on an elegant and innovative mimblewimble protocol. When making use of beam, it gives complete charge over privacy and enables you make decisions on which parties your information will be available to. In the usage of Beam, classified transactions do not have bloating effect on the blockchain there by preventing computational overhead on performance while concealing the value of the transaction. One of the astonishing features of beam is that block mining is done with the use of equihash proof-of-work algorithm. In transacting with beam, addresses are not stored in the block chain ie no information about the buyer and seller is saved.

how beam will change the way cryptousers store value
Beam gives it's users 100% charge or control over their privacy, thereby eradicating third parties. Also beam supports various transaction types such as escrow transaction and more...

how are many of the current blockchain solution lacking privacy
From the onset, transactions carried out in bitcoin network were believed or meant to be based on anonymity. Random private and public key pairs were generated and the public part was used to create an address that can be used to carry out and control transactions. Users of these blockchains assumed that their privacy was certain and their identity was fully covered but this turned out to be false.
In most of the current blockchains, there are always data leeks that can be generated by exchanges, merchants, OTC deals (over the counter) or even by collecting and clustering the block chain data. As a result of these data leeks it is possible to make users anonymity known and since transactions is open and permanently stored in public ledger, as soon as a users identity is known, all the transaction of the user from beginning till date is known. This is as a result of lack of privacy.

Mimblewimble "the core technology behind beam"
Mimblewimble is a protocol of an elegant approach to the topic of efficient confidential blockchain.
Built upon two concept confidential transactions and transaction cut-through
Mimblewimble makes satisfactory usage of a known commitment scheme called Pedersen commitment that achieve this using "eliphic curve cryptography

benefits of having the ability to choose level of privacy
If a transaction is meant to be done from one user to another user, depending on the amount of transaction to be done, the user is allowed to carry out the user blinding factor, this means that no matter the resources of the third party no personal information can be extracted from the block chain.

smaller block chain
Enabling smaller blockchain increases performance and scalability and also smaller block makes it faster and more efficient.

importance of having a privacy for a "store of value" cryptocurrency
In order to stop or avoid outside parties from having access to the users "store of value" cryptocurrency

• Case
Linda has knowledge of cryptocurrency and cryptotrading from the very beginning and wants to go into cryptotrading. But since she has been studying bitcoin blockchain for some time now and she is worried that if she gets a huge amount of bitcoin, the transaction could be likely traced back to her and she intends keeping her identity anonymous. The fear of her transactions being monitored by an outside party leads her to speak with grace a Chief finance engineer in her firm that uses beam for her transactions...
Grace introduces her to beam and gives her the following features of beam.

•Beam is compatible; an industry proven equihash algorithm was chosen to ensure broad adoption by existing gpu miners.

•Beam is sustainable; open source implemented from scratch, community governed and backed by the beam growth pool

•Beam is usable; A wallet for desktop and mobile designed to assist daily usage of both individual and small business users.

•Beam is scalable; the cut-through feature of mimblewimble helps to avoid excessive computational overhead, making the beam blockchain order of magnitude small

•Beam is confidential; all transactions are private

•Beam is versatile; "scriptless script" technology allows implementation of a wide variety of transaction types beyond simple transmission of value.

For more info on beam visit the links below;

Beam Website
Beam Position paper
Mimblewimble paper
Beam YouTube
Beam Telegram
Beam Facebook
Beam Github
Beam Bitcointalk
Beam Medium
Beam Twitter