Beam: Illuminating the Path to Private Money

None of this is should be construed as financial advice, obviously… but enjoy the content nonetheless!

This is another entry in our series highlighting cryptocurrencies with the properties of money, focusing on those that preserve your privacy. As always, we’re keeping the technical jargon to a minimum while giving you the essential information you need to understand what makes this currency special.

[Note: I’ll update this page as the ecosystem evolves to keep you informed about Beam’s development.]

Also, special thanks to @dbadol2000 and @maxnflaxl for helping me keep this document accurate and readable!

Illuminating Financial Privacy

Beam (Ticker: $BEAM) is a privacy-focused cryptocurrency that uses innovative technology to ensure your transactions remain confidential. Like physical cash, Beam keeps the details of your financial activities between you and whoever you’re transacting with.

What makes Beam particularly interesting is its use of the Mimblewimble protocol (yes, that’s a Harry Potter reference) combined with some clever innovations that make private transactions both secure and efficient. We’ll get into the cool tech stuff below, but first, as we always do, let’s check out how Beam stacks up as a money:

Tokenomics

Beam’s monetary system follows a straightforward emission schedule with periodic halvings- similar to Bitcoin’s approach but with its own unique parameters. The last halving was scheduled for January 7th, 2024, which reduced the block reward and affected the rate at which new $BEAM enters circulation.

What makes Beam’s monetary approach interesting is the combination of predictable emission with privacy features. While your individual transactions stay private, anyone can verify the current circulating supply and emission rate by looking at the blockchain. This is possible because even though transaction amounts are hidden using something called Pedersen Commitments (⚠️ This video link is technical but does a good job explaining them), the system still mathematically proves that no new coins are being created beyond the scheduled emission.

For the numbers folks out there:h

• Coins are denominated in BEAM, with the smallest unit being a “Groth” (0.00000001 BEAM)
• Block rewards follow a periodic halving schedule
• The emission is coded into the protocol and publicly verifiable

The Beam supply is capped at 262,800,000 BEAM making it unable to expand with the growth rate of the population. This means if Beam ever hits global adoption its price won’t be stable for merchants to price goods against- a concept we’ve covered extensively here. That said, it will be useful as a privacy preserving currency like Monero, Zano, Pirate Chain, Gold, and Silver.

FYI: The unit “Groth” is named after Jens Groth, Professor of Cryptology at University College London whose work on efficient cryptographic proofs and arguments is fundamental to Mimblewimble and other privacy-focused cryptocurrencies.

Merchant Adoption

If you’re a business you’ll need a way to accept $BEAM. Fortunately, if you use WooCommerce or their integrated API, NOWPayments allows you to create Invoices for payment using $BEAM.

If you’re looking to spend $BEAM you could look through an aggregator like CryptoWerk.

Community

Beam maintains an active presence across multiple platforms where you can engage with developers, users, and privacy enthusiasts. You’ll find regular technical discussions, development updates, and community initiatives happening on:

• Official Beam Home Page
• X: A very active group for general discussion and support
• Telegram: Another active group for general discussion and support
• Discord: Technical chat and development discussions
• Reddit: Community news and discussions
• Forum: Detailed technical discussions and proposals
• GitHub: Source code and technical documentation

The project maintains a comprehensive knowledge base called Beampedia, which serves as a reference for everything from basic concepts to technical deep-dives. They’ve also got a regularly updated blog where they share development progress and technical insights.

Development activity remains steady, with the team currently working hard to improve privacy and usability.

Mining

Getting involved with Beam mining is straightforward, though you’ll want to check the latest mining guides as the specifics can change with protocol updates. The important thing to know is that Beam uses a mining algorithm designed to be ASIC-resistant, meaning regular folks with GPUs can still participate in securing the network.

Designed for Privacy and Flexibility

What sets Beam apart is its multi-layered approach to privacy and functionality. It combines an innovative dual transaction system with powerful confidential assets features, making it both flexible and private.

The Foundation

Two Ways to Send Beam offers two distinct ways to send money, each designed for different situations:

Interactive (Online) Transactions use the Mimblewimble protocol and require both sender and receiver to briefly connect within a 12-hour window. While this might sound inconvenient, it actually provides a powerful benefit: coins can never be lost by sending them to incorrect or dead addresses. If the recipient doesn’t come online to complete the transaction, the funds simply stay with the sender. Think of it like a digital handshake- both parties need to be present to complete the exchange, ensuring nothing gets lost in the process.

One-sided (Offline) Transactions use the Lelantus protocol (the link has a great write up) and work more like traditional cryptocurrency transfers. The sender can transmit funds without the receiver being present, making them more convenient for certain situations. These transactions use a special “shielded pool” system that maintains privacy while allowing recipients to collect their funds whenever they’re ready.

Beyond Basic Transactions

Confidential Assets

Like Zano, which we covered in our previous analysis, Beam extends its privacy features through a powerful Confidential Assets system. While many privacy coins focus solely on transferring a single currency type, Beam goes several steps further by creating what amounts to a super-powered digital wallet that can hold different types of private assets while still letting you prove transactions when needed (like for business compliance).

Confidential Assets in Beam lets you create and transact with different types of tokens while maintaining privacy- all the tokens inherit the same privacy features that make Beam special. You can have your regular Beam coins, plus any other assets you create or receive, all protected by the same powerful privacy tech.

One of Beam’s most important features for real-world adoption is its approach to business compliance. Think about the challenge businesses face with most privacy coins: they need both transaction privacy and the ability to keep records for accounting and regulations. Beam solves this elegantly– businesses can generate special auditing keys that let them prove their transaction history to specific parties like accountants or regulators, while keeping everything else private. Like Monero and Zano, this practical approach makes Beam a viable choice for merchants who want privacy without sacrificing their ability to operate legally. And for individual users? Your transactions simply stay completely private by default.

If you’re looking to play with Confidential Assets you can get started here.

Smart Contracts: More Than Just Tokens

While we talked about Confidential Assets above, Beam also lets you create something even more powerful: smart contracts. But unlike Confidential Assets (which are basically different types of private tokens), smart contracts let you create actual programs that run on Beam’s network- similar to how Ethereum’s smart contracts work, but with built-in privacy.

Think of it this way: if Confidential Assets are like different types of private digital cash, smart contracts are like adding rules and logic to how that cash moves around. You could create things like private trading systems, time-locked savings accounts, or even complex financial agreements- all while keeping the privacy features that make Beam special.

What makes Beam’s approach unique is how they split these contracts into two parts. One part runs on the network (they call these Contract Shaders) and handles all the secure stuff like moving funds around. The other part (Application Shaders) runs in your wallet and makes it easier to actually use these contracts. This split setup helps keep things both secure and user-friendly.

Unlike Ethereum’s contracts that can run automatically based on various triggers, Beam’s contracts only run when someone specifically uses them- kind of like how a vending machine only operates when you put money in and make a selection. This was a deliberate choice to keep things simple and secure.

The really cool part? These contracts inherit Beam’s privacy features, so you can create sophisticated financial tools without sacrificing your privacy. And just like with Confidential Assets, businesses can still generate those special auditing keys if they need to prove what’s happening with their contracts.

So what can you actually build with these smart contracts? Think private decentralized exchanges where you can swap different tokens without anyone seeing your trades. Or crowdfunding campaigns where donors stay anonymous. You could even create private NFT marketplaces, automated savings accounts that lock your BEAM for a set time, or completely private voting systems. And for businesses, you could set up private payroll systems or automated vendor payments- all with that optional auditability we talked about earlier.

If you’re technically inclined, and I hope you are, you could begin by adding to the Beam ecosystem by build applications. Check out this link to Beam’s Smart Contract documentation.

How to Get Beam

First, get yourself a wallet that supports $BEAM. You can find several for different platforms on the official page.

The most anonymous way to get BEAM is to mine it. But if that’s not your thing you can get it from a bunch of different places like:

• MEXC Exchange
• TradeOgre Exchange
• NonKYC Exchange
• Trocador Instant Exchange

And of course you can ask for donations (consider donating $BEAM to me! Address below!) or sell goods and services for Beam.

Beam, like other cryptocurrencies, was created to be used as a currency! So we should!

For the Nerds

This gets fairly technical. You’ve been warned. 😀

Security

Beam’s security model is built on the foundation of two complementary protocols: Mimblewimble and Lelantus. Each protocol handles a different type of transaction, providing users with flexibility while maintaining strong privacy guarantees.

Interactive Transactions through Mimblewimble form the backbone of Beam’s security model. These transactions require active participation from both the sender and receiver, creating a robust two-party security protocol. When initiating a transaction, both parties must contribute their signatures to create a complete kernel signature, ensuring that no funds can be lost through incorrect addresses or user error. The system enforces a 12-hour window for completion, during which both parties must come online to verify and complete the transaction. This direct peer-to-peer verification process creates a secure channel between participants, making it mathematically impossible for funds to be misdirected or lost.

Lelantus protocol powers the One-sided Transactions, providing a different security approach focused on convenience without compromising privacy. These transactions utilize a sophisticated shielded pool system where funds can be sent without requiring immediate receiver participation. The protocol implements advanced zero-knowledge proofs to ensure that while transactions are convenient, they remain completely private. When funds enter the shielded pool, their transaction history becomes cryptographically obscured, preventing any outside observer from tracing the flow of funds. This mechanism supports traditional cryptocurrency workflows while maintaining strong privacy guarantees.

At the network level, Beam implements the Dandelion++ protocol, adding an extra layer of privacy before transactions even reach the blockchain. This protocol obscures the origin of transactions by routing them through a series of nodes in a way that makes it practically impossible to determine where a transaction originated. Think of it as a privacy shield that activates the moment you initiate a transaction, protecting your network identity alongside your transaction privacy.

Confidential Assets Technical Implementation

Beam’s Confidential Assets system extends the core privacy protocols with sophisticated cryptographic techniques that enable private multi-asset transactions. At its heart, the system uses unique generator points for Pedersen Commitments for each asset type. This mathematical foundation allows the blockchain to handle multiple types of assets while maintaining complete privacy about both the asset type and amount being transferred.

The cryptographic implementation ensures that while transactions remain private, they’re still mathematically verifiable. When you create or transfer any asset on Beam, the system generates specialized zero-knowledge proofs that verify the transaction’s validity without revealing any details about the assets involved. This means you can prove that a transaction is legitimate and that no assets are being created or destroyed, all while keeping the specific details confidential.

A particularly innovative aspect is the opt-in auditability system. Through a clever implementation of auditing keypairs, users can generate specific keys that allow transaction viewing without enabling any spending capability. These keys can be selectively shared with auditors who need to verify transaction histories, making it perfect for business use cases where compliance matters. This selective transparency is achieved without compromising the underlying privacy of the system – transactions remain private by default, and only become visible to those specifically granted viewing access through these specialized keys.

The system also includes safeguards against common pitfalls in multi-asset systems. The unique generator points for each asset type ensure that different assets cannot be accidentally mixed or confused during transactions. Meanwhile, the mathematical properties of the Pedersen Commitments maintain the ability to verify that no inflation occurs within any asset type, preserving the integrity of the entire system.

Smart Contract Implementation

Beam’s smart contract architecture introduces an innovative dual-layer approach through what they call “shaders” (a term borrowed from 3D graphics). The system splits contract execution into two distinct components: Contract Shaders and Application Shaders, each serving a specific purpose in the privacy-preserving ecosystem.

Contract Shaders form the on-chain component, executing in Beam’s Virtual Machine (BVM) within a sandboxed environment. These shaders are implemented in WebAssembly (WASM) – typically written in C++ – allowing for Turing-complete programming while maintaining strict security boundaries. What makes this approach particularly powerful is how contracts maintain Beam’s privacy features while supporting complex programmable logic.

Now, for those of you who love getting into the nitty-gritty details (I see you, fellow tech nerds!), let’s break down how these contracts actually live on the network. The lifecycle of a contract follows three distinct phases:

1. Creation: Contracts are instantiated using two parameters – the shader bytecode and constructor arguments. Each contract receives a unique ID derived from a hash of these parameters, ensuring contract integrity.
2. Method Invocation: Users can interact with contracts through ContractInvoke kernels, which specify the contract ID, method number, and arguments.
3. Optional Destruction: Contracts can be destroyed only if they’ve cleared all state variables and have no locked funds or external dependencies.

One of the most interesting aspects is how Beam handles contract validation. They’ve extended Mimblewimble’s commitment model to support contract operations. When a contract is invoked, the system:

• Executes the contract method
• Adjusts kernel commitments based on funds locked/unlocked
• Verifies multi-signature proofs for any required public keys
• Ensures mathematical validity of all operations

To prevent blockchain bloat and maintain network efficiency, Beam implements strict constraints on contract execution:

• Limited execution cycles
• Bounded memory access
• No floating-point operations (using multi-precision integers instead)
• No automatic triggers or timers (contracts must be explicitly invoked)

Application Shaders, running wallet-side, complement the on-chain components by providing user interfaces to contract functionality. These shaders can read blockchain state and prepare contract interactions but require explicit user authorization for any operations affecting funds or network state.

What sets Beam’s implementation apart is its preservation of privacy within a smart contract context – something many other platforms struggle with. While contract data itself is visible on-chain, the actual transaction amounts and participant details remain confidential through the same cryptographic techniques that protect standard Beam transactions.

For developers, this creates an interesting paradigm where they can build complex DeFi applications that inherit Beam’s privacy features while maintaining auditability where needed. The system supports everything from basic token swaps to complex multi-party agreements, all while keeping transaction details confidential by default.

You can read more about this on the official Beam Smart Contract page.

Scalability

One of Beam’s strongest features is how it handles scalability, and this comes from two main architectural decisions:

First, the Mimblewimble protocol itself is incredibly efficient. Thanks to its design, nodes can prune spent outputs from the blockchain while maintaining full security. This means the blockchain size grows much more slowly compared to traditional cryptocurrencies.

Second, Beam’s implementation of Confidential Assets doesn’t add significant overhead to transactions. Despite supporting multiple asset types with full privacy, the cryptographic proofs remain compact and efficient.

Per Beampedia: “A Beam block will be generated approximately every minute and contain about 1000 transactions. Block size will be roughly 1MB.”

Development Activity

Beam’s development team has consistently pushed the boundaries of privacy tech in the crypto space. Some notable technical milestones:

• Implementation of Lelantus-Mimblewimble hybrid protocol
• Development of the Secure Bulletin Board System (SBBS) for offline transactions
• Creation of the Confidential Assets framework
• Integration of opt-in auditability without compromising base privacy
• Upcoming EVM compatibility

Beaming the path forward

None of this should be construed as financial advice, but if you care about financial privacy, here’s what makes Beam worth your attention.

When we talk about sound money in the digital age, most conversations focus on scarcity, reliability, or transaction speed. But there’s something more fundamental at stake: your right to financial privacy. Physical cash gave us this naturally- when you handed someone a dollar bill, that transaction stayed between you and them. Beam preserves this essential feature of money while adding capabilities that cash never had.

Through its implementation of Mimblewimble-Lelantus and Confidential Assets, Beam proves that privacy and functionality aren’t opposing forces. You can have private transactions and still create various asset types. You can maintain your privacy while giving selective visibility to auditors when needed. You can even bridge to Ethereum’s DeFi ecosystem through Wrapped $BEAM while maintaining the core privacy features that make Beam special.

Along with other privacy-preserving currencies like Monero, Pirate Chain, and Zano, Beam is part of a technological movement pushing back against the erosion of financial privacy. Each project takes its own approach, but they share a common goal: protecting your fundamental right to transact without surveillance.

As governments and corporations push for more financial surveillance, the need for privacy-preserving currencies becomes more urgent. The choice between privacy and functionality is a false one- Beam and its peers demonstrate that we can have both. The future of money should enhance our financial sovereignty, not diminish it.

Is it money?

I would argue that it is until (or if) it becomes hyper-deflationary due to its absolute supply cap. It’s the same long term issue that Pirate Chain could potentially have and the issue bitcoin (btc) has already. But that’s not to say that couldn’t change in the future. Until then, I would say, yes absolutely, Beam is money for the foreseeable future.

Beam has a really bright future I’m glad to add it to the pantheon of crypto coins that put preserving financial rights above surveillance greed.

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