/beam

Beam. Scalable Confidential Cryptocurrency. A Mimblewimble implementation

Primary LanguageCApache License 2.0Apache-2.0

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BEAM is a next generation scalable, confidential cryptocurrency based on an elegant and innovative Mimblewimble protocol.

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Read our position paper

Things that make BEAM special include:

  • Users have complete control over privacy - a user decides which information will be available and to which parties, having complete control over his personal data in accordance to his will and applicable laws.
  • Confidentiality without penalty - in BEAM confidential transactions do not cause bloating of the blockchain, avoiding excessive computational overhead or penalty on performance or scalability while completely concealing the transaction value.
  • No trusted setup required
  • Blocks are mined using Equihash Proof-of-Work algorithm.
  • Limited emission using periodic halving.
  • No addresses are stored in the blockchain - no information whatsoever about either the sender or the receiver of a transaction is stored in the blockchain.
  • Superior scalability through compact blockchain size - using the “cut-through” feature of Mimblewimble makes the BEAM blockchain orders of magnitude smaller than any other blockchain implementation.
  • BEAM supports many transaction types such as escrow transactions, time locked transactions, atomic swaps and more.
  • No premine. No ICO. Backed by a treasury, emitted from every block during the first five years.
  • Implemented from scratch in C++.

Roadmap

  • March 2018 : Project started
  • June 2018 : Internal POC featuring fully functional node and CLI wallet
  • September 2018 : Testnet 1 and Graphical Wallet
  • December 2018 : Mainnet launch

Current status

  • Fully functional wallet with key generator and storage supporting secure and confidential online transactions.
  • Full node with both transaction and block validation and full UTXO state management.
  • Equihash miner with periodic mining difficulty adjustment.
  • Batch Bulletproofs, the efficient non-interactive zero knowledge range proofs now in batch mode
  • Graphical Wallet Application for Linux, Mac and Windows platforms
  • Offline transactions using Secure BBS system
  • ChainWork - sublinear blockchain validation, based on Benedikt Bünz FlyClient idea
  • Compact history using cut through

How to build

Windows

  1. Install Visual Studio >= 2017 with CMake support.
  2. Download and install Boost prebuilt binaries https://sourceforge.net/projects/boost/files/boost-binaries/, also add BOOST_ROOT to the Environment Variables.
  3. Download and install OpenSSL prebuilt binaries https://slproweb.com/products/Win32OpenSSL.html (Win64 OpenSSL v1.1.0h for example) and add OPENSSL_ROOT_DIR to the Environment Variables.
  4. Download and install QT 5.11 https://download.qt.io/official_releases/qt/5.11/5.11.0/qt-opensource-windows-x86-5.11.0.exe.mirrorlist and add QT5_ROOT_DIR to the Environment Variables (usually it looks like .../5.11.0/msvc2017_64), also add QML_IMPORT_PATH (it should look like %QT5_ROOT_DIR%\qml). BTW disabling system antivirus on Windows makes QT installing process much faster.
  5. Open project folder in Visual Studio, select your target (Release-x64 for example, if you downloaded 64bit Boost and OpenSSL) and select CMake -> Build All.
  6. Go to CMake -> Cache -> Open Cache Folder -> beam (you'll find beam.exe in the beam subfolder, beam-wallet.exe in ui subfolder).

Linux

  1. Make sure you have installed g++-7 libboost-all-dev libssl-dev packages.
  2. Install latest CMake wget "https://cmake.org/files/v3.12/cmake-3.12.0-Linux-x86_64.sh" and sudo sh cmake-3.12.0-Linux-x86_64.sh --skip-license --prefix=/usr.
  3. Add proper QT 5.11 repository depending on your system https://launchpad.net/~beineri (for example, choose Qt 5.10.1 for /opt Trusty if you have Ubuntu 14.04), install sudo apt-get install qt510declarative qt510svg packages and add export PATH=/opt/qt511/bin:$PATH. For Ubuntu 16.04 install sudo apt install qtdeclarative5-dev libqt5svg5-dev
  4. Go to Beam project folder and call cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release . && make -j4.
  5. You'll find Beam binary in bin folder, beam-wallet in ui subfolder.

Mac

  1. Install Brew Package Manager.
  2. Installed necessary packages using brew install openssl boost cmake qt5 command.
  3. Add OPENSSL_ROOT_DIR="/usr/local/opt/openssl" and export PATH=/usr/local/opt/qt/bin:$PATH to the Environment Variables.
  4. Go to Beam project folder and call cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release . && make -j4.
  5. You'll find Beam binary in bin folder, beam-wallet in ui subfolder.

If you don't want to build UI don't install QT5 and comment CMakeLists.txt:130 # add_subdirectory(ui) line.