Beam 2021 Week #15 - Fork It!
Covering April 5th - April 11th 2021
Download Beam Android Wallet | Beam iOS Wallet | Beam Desktop Wallet
Beam News
The Hard Fork is coming!
Beam will execute the third hard fork and cement the ground for the greatly anticipated Confidential DeFi.
This network upgrade will occur at Block Height 1,260,000, expected to be reached on 29th / 30th May 2021.
Breaking changes
Beam Shaders
The latest network upgrade is all about shaders, and bringing Confidential DeFi capabilities to the Beam Network.
BVM
The Beam Virtual Machine will be live on mainnet. This enables the running of Shaders within the Beam nodes.
N.b. BeamHashIII remains the POW consensus for the Beam blockchain!
Upgrades
Along with the network upgrades requiring the Hard fork, a number of non breaking changes will come with the 6.0 release:
Confidential Asset Support
Coming to the GUI will be support for CAs. This will enable easy sending, receiving, and initial trade capabilities. The fundamental building blocks for a fully fledged private DEX!
DApp Store
An in wallet DApp Store is coming to Beam wallets! This will provide an easy route for putting your Beam and CAs to work, and utilising the added functionality coming with 6.0. The DApp Store will bring with it the first decentralised Beam Faucet, running on the Shaders.
Revamped Send and Receive Screens
The send and receive screens are being reworked, to enable an ease of use unparalleled in the space. This will simplify the onboarding process for new Beamers to get amongst.
Timeline
The release for the coming Hardfork will be out prior to block 1,260,000. We will provide ample time for users, miners, exchanges, and service providers, to upgrade to the newly compatible wallets, nodes, and APIs.
We expect it to be a smooth, yet exciting, transition to a more powerful Beam!
Compatibility
After the Block Height 1,260,000 is reached, wallets earlier than 6.0 will stop working. The users will need to upgrade the wallets to version 6.0 or later to access the funds.
So, what does all this mean for Beam miners?
Nothing!
Make sure you update your wallet at the release prior to the fork and your Beams are golden 😉
Who came in closest 👀
With many asking wen fork, we decided to put the question to the community, with a fun competition on twitter to encourage community activity in a guessing game over the fork height.
And the winner is!…
Khit Chit Zen came in with the closest guess as to the hard fork height, taking home some Beams!!
Beam on ATMs
Recently over 100 Bitcoin ATMs in Europe officially started supporting Beam thanks to Shitcoins.club. The ATMs offer a great way for getting into and out of Beam in cold hard cash, without the need for signups or KYC.
Check out the full story here, and show some support!
R&D
Currently R&D is heavily focused on the upcoming Hardfork, whilst preparing some example contracts, and demos of such, that hope to be utilised along with the Beam 6.0 launch. Stay tuned for more on this in the coming weeks!
Beam Outreach Update
The latest updates from the BOC this week:
Winners for the first round of voting: Honour, Agbona, Namaeforgotten, mehmettugsat
Completed Bounty: Starbimlaw
Signup bonus distributed for the first users of the platform. If you haven’t already send Beam Butler the /balance command and see your Beam and Rays balances
Onboarding for BOC roles
Platform upgrades continue
Check out the full update that came through this week! This will be weekly from here on out, providing a full breakdown on all things BOC for the week! Get amongst the Beam Outreach Club take home some $RAYS, and help craft the platform for future Beamers!
Sign up, stay tuned, and see you all next week!