Beam 2020 Week #34 - Max Privacy
Covering August 17th - August 23rd 2020
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Beam News
With the hotly anticipated Eager Electron 5.1 expected to be released in the next few weeks, what better time to have a look at what is coming with it, and what it means for us as Beamers.
Max Privacy
Coming to the GUI wallets in EE 5.1, Max Privacy transactions will be at the tip of your fingers. Max Privacy utilises Lelantus MW, which was activated in the most recent Beam Hard Fork. Under the hood, there is firstly a transaction from the sender, who submits the UTXOs into the shielded pool. Once in the shielded pool, both time and more UTXOs entering the pool come into play, with more of both leading to a max anonymity set of 64K. After this, the receiver can extract a completely new set of UTXO, unlinked from the history prior to the shielded pool. These operations will be seamlessly built into the standard Send and Receive operations we are already familiar with.
Offline Transactions
As we all know, Mimblewimble is an inherently interactive protocol, with transactions being created by both the sender and receiver. This has always been different from the Bitcoinesque user experience that many in crypto are not only more familiar with, but generally expect of a transaction. With this in mind, Beam has built the ability to send funds non interactively for when a receiver is offline. Offline payments will come in two flavours: using vouchers and using the offline address.
The first, using vouchers, will be released in Eager Electron 5.1. It will give us as users, the ability to create easily sendable addresses, to which we can receive payments whilst offline. It also ensures privacy by utilising unique vouchers for each transaction, and hiding when the pool transactions are spent forward.
Atomic Swap Improvements
With the next EE 5.1 release, there will be some excellent improvments coming to the in wallet Atomic Swaps. The swaps will be more manageable, with easy access to optimal fee rates for the swaps. This will come along side a substantial reduction in fees, due to the use of SegWit on the BTC and LTC sides, further improving the UX of the confidential, decentralised swaps, right from within the wallet.
Settings Revamp
With more power, comes more responsibility, and with more features, comes more settings. For this reason, and so not to crowd the wallet settings, they have undergone a revamp. In EE 5.1, the settings will be modular, and offer an easier experience in finding and tweaking what you are after.
Research and Development
This week, Alex takes us through the latest updates on the development front. He takes a look at the Eager Electron 5.1 release, the Beam Roadmap and how you can contribute and comment, along with questions brought up by the community.
The Roadmap will be presented to the Beam foundation in the coming days, with the official unveiling expected before the end of the month. If you haven’t already, head to the Beam GitHub, and provide your thoughts, opinions and feedback as to the direction being taken.
Press
Beam Tech Lead, Alex, gives a powerful presentation on the need for privacy in DeFi, and how Beam is leading the way to achieve just that
Beam YouTube channel has undergone a makeover, with a new logo and banner, making it sexier than ever. Tune in and subscribe!
Upcoming AMA being put on by Beam India, and Zubi. Coming up on the 29th of August, get there and get involved!
A great piece on Why Beam, coming to us from SOMAG News, also available in Turkish, thanks to the lovely Türkan Babacan
A great piece to keep you safe during Covid time, by way of the beautiful Scarlet
Last weeks newsletter, coming to us in Spanish, from the great Fernando, along with the translation for the recent AMA with Crypto Academy
Sign up, stay tuned, and see you all next week!
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I would like to know more about how a envisioned trustless centralized services works