Beam: User Case

Two people have been intimate with all my life? That would be Gbadebo and Tayo. They are my childhood friends and we are more of brothers now.
Gbadebo is a young business man, who has invested millions in cryptocurrency and due to nature of public transactions of cryptocurrency, he has always been a target of scammers. Just last week he was dubbed of a huge amount of money. Gbadebo is quite purtubed on how to prevent future occurence and again have his transactions done on a low-key.
Tayo is almost in a similar situation. He is a young banker who on the counsel of Gbadebo, invested in cryptocurrency too, but because he is the only successful one in his family, there are always calls for help from people, even at his own detriment.
Anytime he refuses on help, there will be threats from his family, revealing how much bitcoin transactions he made some days back.
In our weekly rendevouz in a bar, I noticed their bad vibes, ask what's up with them and that was when they poured out their minds to me. Asked if I could be of help to them.
I told them how I honestly feel what they are going through and made them know the number one problem facing Blockchain system such as Bitcoin is privacy.
It is now possible for people to track data and know the source and end point of transactions and this allows them to know party involved in blockchain transactions by analyzing the blockchain which is publicly available for all to see.
Furthermore, I told them the only solution to their current conundrum is Beam.
Gbadebo with his husky voice and inquisitive mind asked, "Seun, what is BEAM?" and then I began.
"Beam is a store where valuable coins are kept and under mimblewimble protocol, keeps these coins and transactions of these coins with high level of secrecy. To maintain the benefits of immutable and incorruptible blockchain system, Beam enables the choice of transparency and also allows the owner of the coin,control over his/her transactions under anonymousity.
That said, because Beam uses Mimblewimble, Beam has smaller blocks than other blockchain and this makes it increases greatly with ease, i.e gives it maximum scalability and also makes it efficient and a fast network".
Then comes Tayo with his question, he asked for further insight on Mimblewimble. I told him " Mimblewimble is a protocol that was put forward by an anonymous user in a Bitcoin developers chatroom by the name of Tom Elvis Jedusor and by using the Mimblewimble protocol, the scalability, as well as the privacy of the Bitcoin network could significantly be enhanced.
Mimblewimble transactions are a derivation of another transaction type known as, confidential transactions. confidential transactions allow senders to encrypt the number of Bitcoins they want to send using what are known as, blinding factors . Blinding factors are simply strings of numbers used to encrypt Bitcoin amounts in a transaction. In a confidential transaction, only the two parties involved are cognisant of the amount of Bitcoins being transacted, onlookers cannot know. However, onlookers can still ensure that the transaction is valid by comparing the number of inputs and outputs; if both are the same, then the transaction will be valid. Such a procedure ensures that no Bitcoins have been created from nothing and is key in preserving the integrity of the system.
Another derivation of Mimblewimble is Transaction Cut – Though. This s a mechanism by which transactions are simply combined which results in the obfuscation of inputs and outputs. This has the effect of making it impossible for anyone to determine which Bitcoins were sent from any of the participating Bitcoin addresses. Therefore, in relation to Mimblewimble transactions, when combined together, a block would simply consist of: a list of inputs, a list of outputs, and signature data. This offers significant space savings in blocks because other transaction data no longer need to be stored, only inputs and outputs. By subtracting the total inputs from the total outputs, and ensuring that the result is zero, a blockchain built from such a system will be valid. This is in contrast to how transactions, and therefore the blockchain, is proved to be valid in Bitcoin. In this instance, the whole blockchain must be downloaded and the history of a transaction output analysed in order to ensure its validity.
The space savings as well as the privacy offered through the use of the Mimblewimble protocol is clear. By pruning the blockchain of unnecessary transaction data, scalability becomes less of an issue because more transactions can be included in a single block. Due to the obfuscation of inputs and outputs, as well as the elimination of public addresses in Mimblewimble transactions, true anonymity, as opposed to pseudonymity, is achieved".
Tayo further pressed on, "Seun how does Beam really work?" Then I went ahead to give a detailed explanation. " Tayo, I believe you now know what Mimblewimble is and told you Beam uses Mimblewimble. The concept of Mimblewimble allows Beam builds it network from the scratch using C++ and this enable transactions to take place in privacy without blocking the network.
Because of it use of Mimblewimble, Beam can adopt numerous usage, while it maintain it appropriate blocksizes and again allows full control of privacy".

Then comes Gbadebo who has been paying rapt attention with his question, he asked "So you've mentioned how Beam works and all that, can you please give an explicit benefits of using Beam? "
Interesting question, isn't it? Below are the benefits I mentioned:

1. Tayo none of your relatives would be able to see your transactions, because Beam allows you full control of how your information is shared, I.e who and when it is shared.
2. Gbadebo you have always been a target of scammers, Beam allows you to tie multiply transactions, blocks and entire blockchain into one single transaction.
   3.Tayo and Gbadebo due to your high fortune in Crptocurrency, people monitors the figures in your transactions, but with Beam it allows you to keep the amounts and values of transactions secret.
   B 4. it keeps the addresses of the sender and receiver in the transaction away from public knowledge.
3. Enabling multiple transaction types in a private manner: escrow, time locked, atomic swaps, etc.
   6.With fewer transaction details per transaction makes a smaller blockchain which enables efficient scaling and speedy confirmations.
4. There is transparency in the transactions even under secrecy.
5. You have autonomous control of your transactions.

Those were the advantages of using Beam I told Gbadebo and Tayo.
To end the conversation with which we have been engrossed in, I had to reiterate all I have been saying. " Gbadebo, Tayo I have been all lyrical about Beam for over half an hour now. I told you Beam uses mimblewimble protocol, which allows you to make transactions in an efficient, less baulky and with high level of secrecy. Mimblewimble with the aid of confidential and Transactions cut through derivatives allows you to keep the locale of the receiver and sender,also the value of the transaction.
Also Beam with the aid of mimblewimble reduces bulkiness of the blockchains, which allows transactions to be faster, scalable. It reduces the load on your system and increases your privacy".
After a severally minutes of giving detailed explanation of how Beam could be of help to my friends, it performed some magic that particular night. My friends were all cheered up after listening to me talk how Beam will solve their headaches.
Our subsequently usual weekly rendezvous was full of testimonies from Tayo and Gbadebo. They could not stop talking about how Beam has been a saving grace for them.

Roadmap

Team

Beam Website
Beam position paper
Mimblewimble whitepaper
Beam Telegram
Beam Facebook
Beam Github
Beam YouTube
Beam Medium

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