What is BEAM?

BEAM is a fungible cryptocurrency based on the Mimblewimble implementation. The description states that transactions are private by default and that no addresses or other private information are stored on the blockchain. It also mentions scalability through a compact blockchain size and supports opt-in auditability, including online and offline transaction support and atomic swap.

The described governance model has no premine and no ICO, with backing by a treasury and a non-profit foundation proposed to govern the protocol after Mainnet launch. The system uses wallets that create transactions via secure channels and co-sign them using the Schnorr protocol. Transactions include Pedersen commitments for inputs and outputs, explicit fees and kernels, and non-interactive zero knowledge range proofs to verify positive output values. Nodes verify transactions against recent state maintained as a Merkle tree recorded in block headers alongside proof of work, with periodic compacted history for fast sync. Blocks are mined about every minute and accepted based on the longest chain.