Mimblewimble Protocol Goes Live With The Launch Of BEAM Cryptocurrency

Thursday 2rd January 2018 marks the day BEAM, the scalable and confidential cryptocurrency officially launches under the highly anticipated ‘Mimblewimble‘ protocol. According to the release, BEAM will champion for the establishment of a privacy-enhanced blockchain that will be the Bitcoin alternative.

Together with another crypto, Grin, BEAM intends to use the Mimblewimble protocol as a mean to make transactions secure with confidentiality and eliminate traceability. GRIN was the first crypto concept to theorize the use of the Mimblewimble protocol from 2016. However, BEAM (conceived in March 2018) will launch ahead of GRIN thanks to today's announcement.

BEAM official GitHub further details what users should expect with the unveiling of their cryptocurrency. According to the launch, BEAM users will able to control the availability of their information to interested parties. In short, BEAM is indeed giving back complete control of personal data to the owners. The additional feature of transparency would have not only individuals using the crypto but also businesses looking to utilize the optional transparency feature. The option is beneficial to companies looking to learn more about who exactly they are in business with.

Aside from the data control, BEAM also looks to introduce a new technology known as Dandelion to build upon the confidentiality of the transactions. The Dandelion technology will further focus on facilitating the obscuring of the network traffic activity through the randomization of the pathways present. That will be made possible with the paths through which the blockchain's transactions start getting dispersed on the decentralized network structure.

The team would first need to pursue the development of the existing prototype and begin the testing of the project on its network. Subsequently, the introduction will be followed by a cut-off of BEAM\s overall block reward y 20 percent. The 20 percent will be sent to a BEAM treasury comprising of founders, investors and the BEAM Foundation. The mechanism will work similarly to other existing privacy-focused crypto such as Zcash. BEAM expects its block reward to be phased out after five years.

Both BEAM and GRIN are gaining attention as privacy-enhanced alternatives that could solve the existing networks. Already the cryptos are garnering support from reputable Bitcoin developers such as Jameson Lopp who are outright championing for the new ‘Mimblewimble' technology taking shape.

His tweet reads:

If you're interested in cutting-edge cypherpunk protocols, you should be keeping an eye on @grinMW and @beamprivacy.

The two cryptocurrencies do not also have plans to launch their ICOs anytime soon. BEAM, for instance, encourages users to earn their crypto through mining.

The Mimblewimble protocol is a proposal bordering on having a Bitcoin-like blockchain network that could be used as a side chain or as an extension block scheme that can act as an integrated sidechain. The technology leverages concepts such as Confidential Transactions system, and one-way aggregated signatures (OWAS) to offer better scalability and secure transactions. Mimblewimble will run whenever there is a trade off between interested parties looking for scalability and privacy.

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