Beam, the privacy coin based on Mimblewimble protocol, completed its 1st hard fork on 15th August 2019 at 19:00 hrs. (UTC) away from the ASICs. The scheduled fork was carried out at 321,321 blocks, according to the reports.
Beam’s hard fork adapted the mining algorithm owing to the ASIC mining issues as outlined in its blueprint. Alex Romanov, the CTO of Beam, stated that their privacy coin is on the right track in achieving its primary goals, and the algorithm has made it more scalable and efficient. Continuing further, the CTO said that BeamHash II, the new algorithm, is around 30 percent more efficient than its first counterpart.
Apart from that, the team has added Laser Beam support (Beam’s Lightning Network variant) in addition to adding mandatory proof of work for the SBBS messages. A mandatory fee has also been added which depends on the number of kernels and outputs, said Romanov.
The hard fork of Beam against the ASICs is quite similar to the endeavors by other digital currencies, such as monero, that was hard forked over equivalent concerns back in the month of March.
Romanov also said that from now on, the foundation’s focus is on the customer side after the hard fork focused on miners. Their list of to-dos now includes confidential asset development, atomic swaps, general wallet improvement, as well as the integration of hardware wallet with Trezor.
