Beam (BEAM) is a privacy-focused cryptocurrency and blockchain platform that was designed to offer private, confidential transactions.
Beam employs the Mimblewimble protocol, a blockchain technology that focuses on enhancing user privacy. Through the use of confidential transactions and confidential assets, Beam transactions do not reveal transaction amounts or sender/receiver addresses. This provides a high level of privacy for its users.
The Mimblewimble protocol is also known for its scalability advantages. It uses a unique way of constructing transactions that minimizes data storage and ensures efficient blockchain growth.
Beam initially used a PoW mining algorithm called Equihash, similar to Bitcoin. However, in a subsequent upgrade, the Beam team replaced Equihash with BeamHash, a custom PoW algorithm.
