Beam to Launch Confidential DeFi Network ‘BeamX’
November 12, 2020 — Almost 2 years since the Mainnet launch, Beam brings its expertise to the DeFi space. Launching the BeamX platform will enable creating financial applications that are confidential, decentralized and user-friendly.. Potential applications include DEX, Uniswap-like Automatic Market Making, DAI-like Algorithmic Stable Coins, lending, wrapped assets and NFT tokens.
BeamX will benefit from the suite of tools already available, such as Atomic Swaps, Laser Beam (Bidirectional Payment Channels) and Confidential Assets and be joined by future infrastructure upgrades such as Oracles and interoperability with Ethereum / Polkadot.
BeamX will launch November 19th, with the first iteration being an experimental network, aiming to flesh out the infrastructure, documentation, and developer tools. The launch coincides with Beam’s participation in the upcoming Hackathon by Encode Hack Club, alongside the likes of Polkadot, Binance, and Avalanche, where they expect the first outside developments to be built on BeamX. The Mainnet release is expected in Q1 2021 post hardfork.
Why privacy is important
The majority of current DeFi applications are running within the Ethereum ecosystem; a transparent, public chain. One does not have to look far to see the issues arising from the lack of privacy. From front running bots to visible on-chain lending and margin trades, players big and small have their transactions exposed, along with the strategies they adopt. The only way to resolve many such issues is by adding privacy to DeFi, which is exactly what the BeamX platform is targeting.
BeamX technical innovations
The BeamX platform will offer the ability for developers to build decentralized apps and financial instruments by using Ethereum-like smart contracts and user-friendly frontend components.
The contracts, a.k.a. Beam Shaders, will be compiled from a variety of programming languages into WebAssembly (WASM) and will be executed by the Beam Virtual Machine (BVM) running in Beam nodes. Using WASM enables creators of smart contracts to use a wide variety of programming languages such as Rust, Go, C++, etc.
BeamX DeFi applications will be easily embedded into Beam wallets, utilizing a web-based framework. Having wallets across all major platforms will allow developers to take their applications to the already established Beam user base via an in-wallet dApp store.
About Beam
Beam is a confidential and scalable cryptocurrency. By building a confidential financial ecosystem with opt-in auditability that allows users to create and trade digital assets and build financial services, Beam aims to preserve privacy while delivering value. Beam launched on January 3, 2019, with proof of work consensus, a capped emission, and is backed by a treasury. Since launch, Beam has added Atomic Swaps with BTC, LTC, and QTUM, and looks to expand this with their upcoming releases. They have released wallets across all platforms for mobile, desktop, and Web, with a strong focus on ease of use and user experience.
