Transcript: Beam-Huobi Nigeria AMA Session Featuring Alex Romanov, Beam’s Tech Lead and CTO.
Members of team Beam led by Alex Romanov had an interaction with the Huobi Nigeria community in an exciting AMA session over the weekend. The session was moderated by Emeka Ezike, the community Manager of Huobi, Nigeria.
The interaction was segmented into a first and second section. In the first section, the Huobi community manager asked Alex Romanov questions, while in the second section, members of the Huobi community asked the questions.
We’ll present all the questions asked, as well as the responses, as it happened during the AMA session.
First Section: Emeka Ezike (Moderator) with Alex Romanov
Question (Emeka Ezike): Can you tell us a bit about yourself and the Beam Project?
Alex Romanov: Sure, So my name is Alex Romanov, and I have been developing software for the last 17 years or so. Mostly in various startups, and many many different technologies. When I started working on Beam, which was almost exactly 2 years ago. I was new to the cryptocurrency and blockchain space. It was a very interesting and exciting thing to learn.
Beam came up as an idea to create an independent implementation of the Mimblewimble protocol, which was first published in June 2016 and became popular since. Mimblewimble provides a very elegant combination of both confidentiality and scalability, two features we believe are essential to any practical cryptocurrency.
Over two years, we have improved and extended the basic MW protocol in many different ways and I will tell you about the things we did in a few minutes.
Question (Emeka Ezike): Great information
What is the differentiating factor between Beam and other privacy coins?
Alex Romanov: So far the confidential cryptocurrencies like ZCash and Monero had to trade off the blockchain size for confidentiality This is something Mimblewimble shines at since no such tradeoff is necessary MW blockchain is smaller than even Bitcoin, for similar amount of transactions of course since in MW we do not need to store the intermediate UTXOs that were already spent This is the strong point of the protocol out of the box, however, Beam has taken the basic ideas and expanded a lot of them by building features such as Atomic Swaps, Laser Beam and this year, confidential assets, Lelantus MW and more Our goal for 2020 is to become a full-fledged platform for Confidential Defi applications We have updated our roadmap recently to reflect that fact and published a detailed video explaining theses concepts on our YouTube channel.
Question: Factors listed makes Beam unique
For Africa what implementation does Beam look to actualize (even if it’s DeFi app) looking at use case?
Alex Romanov: Our first idea is to build bridges that would allow moving assets from Ethereum to Beam, trade them confidentially and then optionally move them back again. This would allow, for example, trading stable coins that currently exist on Eth network confidentially over Beam It’s not specific for Africa, but I think you will find this use case interesting and ultimately useful. The confidential assets are new types of tokens on the Beam network. You can create new tokens, similar to Ethereum, however, it is done without having to write smart contracts. and all these tokens are first-grade citizens on the blockchain and inherit the same properties as Beam itself, confidentiality and scalability. No other privacy coin has that.
To make these features accessible, we are developing a web wallet. that will provide capabilities for integration with other wallets and services. MW was notoriously difficult to integrate into 3rd party wallets, and we are working to change that.
Second Segment: Questions from the audience
@giveawayman: In an AMA yesterday, you spoke on the fact that you could increase TPS if need be, please explain more about the Protocol that would be used for that
What’s LELANTUS and Doppler
Alex Romanov: The current TPS of Beam network is about 17 to 20 transactions per second. We also have a feature called Laser Beam which implements direct payment channels, similar to the lightning network which allows instant confirmation transactions. It is being integrated for the next version, which is called Double Doppler 4.2
Lelantus MW is the extension of the MW protocol that uses shielded pool to completely break the linkability of UTXOs, one of the weaknesses of MW protocol
(@Boylut): What problem does Beam want to address by implementing the Lelantus-MW which will be activated soon ? and how’s it different from the previous version of MW and Lelantu
Alex Romanov: Lelantus was developed by Aram Jivanyan for Zcoin cryptocurrency. Beam has adopted the protocol for MW for two purposes:
1. Allow to completely break the UTXO linkability
2. We also use Lelantus to hide the type of the confidential assets being traded, so that nothing is visible in the blockchain. No addresses, no values and not even the type of the asset being traded
Question: (@giveawayman):
Doesn’t the “opt-in compliance” negate the whole idea of privacy, now how can we trust the regulators/auditors to keep the information data private? Who are these regulators and auditors?
Why did beam have to do HARD FORK and what’s the advantage
Explain more about LASER BEAM — Layer 2 solution for fast payment channels on top of Beam. Would BEAM focus on payments or also engage other valuable industries?
Alex Romanov: No, it most certainly does not. Opt-in compliance means that IF you desire to show some information that YOU decide is relevant to the third party of your choice, you can do it and you can cryptographically PROVE that it is correct. It does not affect the confidentiality of the network as a whole or users that do not want to use this feature.
We need to hardfork to introduce significant changes that break the current consensus, just like most other projects
Laser Beam is the first step towards the Lightning network like a system that provides L2 direct payment channels with instant confirmation.
(@Abisola1): Beam and Grin are based on the same Mimblewimble protocol. Yet, the Breaking Mimblewimble’s Privacy Model” that works in Grin didn’t work with Beam. Why does it work with Grin and how’s Beam different?
Alex Romanov: Well the problem does exist, but it is smaller due to a feature that we have added to the Dandelion protocol that is used to forward transactions between the nodes.
In the stem phase of Dandelion, we add decoy outputs that make the detection harder.
However, using Lelantus MW it would be possible to avoid this issue completely.
(@giveawayman): Considering the troubles facing privacy coins, how will BEAM cope in the nearest future with legal framework and competition
Recently some flaws were exposed on mimblewimble, please how does BEAM deal with this, maintaining user privacy.
Alex Romanov: Well, there are not as many troubles as it seems. Both for privacy coins in general and MW in particular. Overall I think MW offers great practical confidentiality and can be used safely for most real-world cases.
(@cryptojamie1): How can the Beam Token be integrated in the common day to day transactions in the financial sector of our country (Nigeria)?
Angus Sullivan: I want to jump in and add a little here too. For me, Beam is already a great way to transact privately. 150+ merchants are accepting Beam and continuing to grow in the future. One of the best examples of when private payments can be crucial is for something like a VPN. If you’re paying with your bank card or BTC, there is little to no privacy, and this can affect the trust model of using the VPN.
With Nigeria, and the greater Africa, the things I am most excited about in terms of integration would be:
- Private stable coins on top of Beam: This can help to have privacy, avoid exposure to local currencies, and avoid the volatility of crypto
- Charities, NGOs, etc. accepting Beam: I think this is a great use case, and in oftentimes donating to such, can reflect negatively on individuals or companies, without privacy.
(sirsheego): What are the best marketing measure to create more awareness beyond Huobi and other platforms
Agbona Igwemoh: We take a more organic approach to marketing at Beam, as we let our product speak for itself. We are developing best-in-class privacy cryptocurrency. There was no ICO, airdrop or bounty, yet within 2 years, we are revered as one of the top privacy cryptocurrency in the space.
On the marketing front, we work closely with our global ambassador network, in attending and speaking 3rd party events. Also, we have periodic online AMAs and webinars (like this) to reach a wider audience.
(@cryptojamie1): How can the Beam Token be integrated in the common day to day transactions in the financial sector of our country (Nigeria)?
Alex Romanov: Great question
We provide APIs and soon SDKs for integrating Beam into merchants, pools and exchanges (available today) and to build confidential financial applications (soon). If you want to learn more about specific applications that can be built, please contact us and we will provide more details, so we do not get too technical here.
(@giveawayman): Your metamorphosis is a laudable one, how have you been able to survive this longest bear market and continue building and developing cos many projects have died out in this period. What’re your greatest threats going forward and what plans are in place to overcome them
Alex Romanov: So far things were going good for us, considering the bear market. We have enough resources to move forward and implement our 2020 roadmap, which is very ambitious and aggressive. I hope things will continue to go well for the industry in general.
(@giveawayman): You will agree with me that adoption and UTILITY is very key to project survival, what’s being done to drive global adoption of BEAM AMIDST CRYPTO REGULATIONS AND LEGISLATION
WHAT’S MAJOR MILESTONES DO YOU WANT TO ACHIEVE BY END OF THIS YEAR AND WHAT SETBACKS DID YOU ENCOUNTER DURING LAUNCH AND HOW DID YOU OVERCOME THEM
Alex Romanov: We have a clear roadmap for 2020 on our website, beam.mw. We are keeping an eye out for all changes in the market and legislation and are being vigilant to what is going on around us. Hope that will do
Re global adoption, we are active in many areas of the world, attracting communities and supporters, which help us and support us a lot!
(@Boylut): Why did BEAM choose Equihash-based mining algorithm over existing mining algorithm such as Bitcoin SHA256 and the rest?
Alex Romanov: Beam wanted to be mined on GPUs and avoid Asics for at least a year and a half. This is why we chose and modified the Equihash to our variant called BeamHash (and more recently BeamHash II). And this is also why we have declared two scheduled forks. The first one was last year and the next one is coming this year, in a few months.
(@giveawayman): Explain more about BEAM MINING
WHAT’S YOUR COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE AGAINST OTHER PROJECTS
What’s the utility of beam, why should we use beam amongst a host of privacy coin
Alex Romanov: Currently Beam has very good standing in the privacy coin family for several reasons:
1. MW protocol provides great scalability with confidentiality
2. Introduction of Lelantus MW solves the linkability issue
3. We build a platform for confidential assets
4. Our development speed is very competitive, we have a proven record of delivering on our promises
(@cryptojamie1): Can Beam be programmed into a POS terminal for daily usage?
Alex Romanov: Yes, in fact, we have about 100 stores and services accepting Beam today. Contact us for details
Angus Sullivan: And with the upcoming Web wallet, and infrastructure behind it, this will open the door for POS terminals to add Beam for physical merchants to accept as payment.
Something I expect to see soon
@Olonade02 1/4: Why do you think privacy is necessary in blockchain, and do you think the cryptocurrency and blockchain world is tending towards privacy, or privacy coins are just only reigning for the meantime and would soon die just as other initiatives??
Alex Romanov: Our top priority is practicality. And we believe that to be practical in the real world you have to have confidentiality. After all, neither a business nor a private person would want all of his financial transactions to be visible to just about anyone as is currently the case in Bitcoin or Ethereum. Not to mention that privacy is an important and sometimes misunderstood basic human right.
2/4: You just said your goal for 2020 is to become a full-fledged platform for Confidential DeFi applications. Does that mean someone like me that is not interested in DeFi applications should expect nothing else from BEAM in this year 2020?
Alex Romanov: I think you can expect quite a lot. First, as a Beam holder, you will see the value of Beam appreciating with more adoption and features. All these things will be made usable and built into our wallets, as is our tradition. This means you will be able to use these applications, whether for lending, trading or any other purposes.
3/4: You just said Mimblewimble provides a very elegant combination of both confidentiality and scalability. However, you didn’t say anything about security. Can you tell us the security measures employed by BEAM??
Alex Romanov: Confidentiality implies the security of your information. Re other security, such as hacks, I think this is more of a code quality issue since most of the times either the wallets or 3rd parties are hacked and rarely the protocol. We try very hard to provide both manual and automatic testing for all our releases (and we had 65 releases last year on all platforms). It’s a difficult thing to do, but we are doing our very best there
4/4: BEAM has been doing great in Nigeria. However, most of the activities are online. Do you have plans to carry out physical meetups, especially in higher institutions?? For example, I need a blockchain meet-up in my institution, OAU, Ile-Ife, Nigeria, especially on privacy coins.
Alex Romanov: We are trying the combination of both online and offline activities, we had quite a few meetups last year, also in Nigeria. These are organized by local Ambassadors, which are doing a great job and are very appreciated.
(@Olonade02): BEAM has been doing great in Nigeria. However, most of the activities are online. Do you have plans to carry out physical meetups, especially in higher institutions?? For example, I need a blockchain meet-up in my institution, OAU, Ile-Ife, Nigeria, especially on privacy coins.
Angus Sullivan: More recently we have been focussed on attending and participating in other events than hosting our own. If you are interested in having us help and contribute to such an event, please reach out to @Aagbona or me, and we would love to make it happen.
One of our main driving focuses is to promote privacy in general. Something crucial to us all 👍
@giveawayman 1/2: What roles will you beam play in the innovativeness of DeFi
Alex Romanov: We provide a completely different paradigm for DeFi applications. It’s a little difficult to explain in short AMA, but the basic difference is that instead of using Smart Contracts, like in Ethereum, we build applications using a concept called Scriptless Scripts. The key difference is that in SC all the nodes have to perform the calculation but in Scriptless Scripts the calculation is performed off-chain, and the nodes only need to agree on and verify the results.
This approach has some advantages over SC, but also some nuances, so it is best suited for a specific class of DeFi applications.
In any case, the confidentiality component is an important innovation and will serve as a basis for many practical implementations
1/2: How does the Privacy of Beam better than that of Monero
Alex Romanov: Better scalability in terms of blockchain size, and also the advanced features such as Atomic Swaps, which are unique to Beam.
@embito (Moderator): Can you tell us more on what you think about compliance for a regulatory point on privacy coin
Alex Romanov: Well so far we did not see a unified policy, different countries tackle this issue in their way. But in most part, I think there is an understanding that confidentiality is important and should not be prohibited outright. I think it’s a process and an evolution which will eventually result in getting some understanding across markets. We are optimistic on this front.
Summary
In summary, it was an exciting AMA, where a high number of relevant and intelligent questions were asked. We are super proud to be have had the opportunity of interacting with the Huobi Nigeria community.
We plan to host AMAs on a monthly basis with different communities in Africa, there will be a number of AMAs in the coming months, so stay tuned for more exciting content as an epic year unravels before us.
