It is well-known that Ethereum was born from PoW (Proof of Work) and successfully transitioned to PoS (Proof of Stake) in 2021. In this regard, Justin Drake, a core researcher at the Ethereum Foundation, believes that although the beacon chain was effective when PoS was first introduced, it has accumulated some 'technical debt' over the past five years, and its design has not leveraged cutting-edge technologies in decentralized systems (such as zero-knowledge proofs). Therefore, the consensus layer of Ethereum urgently needs a major overhaul.
In a recent speech at Devcon in Bangkok, Ethereum researcher Justin Drake announced a proposal to fundamentally reform Ethereum's consensus layer, called 'Beam Chain.'
This is part of Ethereum's long-term roadmap, allowing Ethereum to leverage the achievements of current breakthroughs in ZK cryptography, aiming to significantly improve network scalability and performance without launching a new network. Undoubtedly, it is one of the most important upgrades for Ethereum in the next 3-5 years.
Beam Chain is not a new blockchain in the literal sense, but a new infrastructure built within the Ethereum mainnet that will significantly increase the transaction speed, security, and efficiency of the L1 mainnet. Some interpret Beam Chain as Ethereum 3.0, which is a misunderstanding because Beam Chain only addresses consensus layer issues and does not change the data layer (like blob channels) or execution layer (like the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM)).
The five core transformations of Beam Chain are:
1. Faster Block Confirmation: Enable 4-second slot time and single-slot finality
2. Not at the Cost of Decentralization: Maintain or improve current decentralization guarantees
3. Lower Staking Threshold: Reduce ETH Staking from 32 ETH to 1 ETH
4. Protecting Ordinary Users: Eliminating MEV based on block reorganization
5. Future-Proofing: Equip the Ethereum network with quantum capabilities
The Upgrade Ideas and Principles of Beam Chain
1. Increase Block Production
Higher Throughput: Beam Chain will triple the block production rate to enhance Ethereum's transaction capacity.
Censorship Resistance: The introduction of FOCIL (Fork-Choice Mandatory Inclusion List) enhances censorship resistance, ensuring that transactions are not easily excluded by malicious actors.
Execution Auctions & Isolated Validators: Validators will use execution auctions for isolation, ensuring stronger performance and decentralization while also allowing more users to be free from MEV interference.
Faster Finality: Ethereum will have single-slot finality and 4-second block time characteristics, resulting in quicker transaction confirmations and improved network efficiency.
Interestingly, exchanges no longer need to wait for 1/32, 2/32, 3/32... slow block confirmations, because in the future, a single block will suffice for confirmation.
2. Improved Staking
Improve Issuance Model: Changes to the reward issuance model for validators allow for greater returns on staking.
Reduce Staking Requirements: Independent validators only need to stake 1 ETH, far below the current threshold of 32 ETH, making independent staking simpler and more accessible.
We believe that for Ethereum to accommodate more nodes participating in consensus under accelerated conditions, while also not significantly changing the hardware threshold, and breaking the staking impossibility triangle, it is truly thanks to ZK technology, which is indeed leading the industry significantly.
3. Enhanced Security
Post-Quantum Cryptography: Ethereum will implement quantum-resistant cryptography to protect the network from quantum computing threats, taking a significant step towards mainstream blockchain quantum resistance.
zkSNARK and zkVM Integration: Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZKP) will be integrated with Ethereum through zkSNARK and zkVM to further enhance privacy, scalability, and security.
SNARKification of Blockchain: Ethereum will utilize RISC-V to SNARKify the blockchain, a process that can improve proof generation efficiency and scalability. SNARK is a compact form of zero-knowledge proof that allows one party to prove they possess information without revealing the information or requiring any interaction between the prover and verifier.
In short, we can summarize this as: directly ZK-transform the entire Ethereum.
Enhanced Randomness: Ethereum will also introduce strong randomness to ensure fairness in key network processes like validator selection.
Reduce MEV Risk: Better censorship resistance can minimize the proliferation of sandwich attacks and other bots.
4. How It Works
Since the design of Ethereum's current consensus layer (beacon chain) was established, significant progress has been made in SNARKs by cryptographers. By SNARKifying Ethereum's state transition function (i.e., the messages of state changes integrated to keep validators' views of the blockchain correct), it can achieve 4-second slot times and single-slot finality.
On one hand, the reduction in block production and finality time can positively impact the waiting time for Ethereum L1 transaction experience;
On the other hand, it can also eliminate the potential value extracted from transactions through remote block reorganization strategies and reduce the technical debt of the consensus layer.
Additionally, SNARKification will give the Ethereum network quantum resistance, a necessary feature for future blockchains.
Beam Chain will advance Ethereum's upgrade from the following aspects:
Using Sharding to Accelerate Processing Speed: Ethereum Beam Chain will employ sharding technology to break data into smaller parts (shards) to process multiple transactions simultaneously. This will reduce transaction bottlenecks and speed up transaction times.
Security against Quantum Computing: Ethereum will use cutting-edge cryptographic technology to ensure that even future super quantum computers cannot compromise the network's security.
Integration with Ethereum's Roadmap: Beam Chain is not an independent network but an integrated phase of Ethereum's roadmap for expansion and improved security over the next five years.
5. Important Significance
Beam Chain is crucial for Ethereum's ability to handle the growing capacity of decentralized applications — it can enhance Ethereum's scalability, reduce transaction costs, and improve overall security, enabling the network to support more users and complex applications over time.
Another major benefit of SNARK-based proofs is: allowing regular stakers equipped with standard hardware to achieve the aforementioned performance advantages, and as the staking threshold decreases from 32 ETH to 1 ETH, the decentralization of the Ethereum staking community will also improve as network performance increases.
Especially with the lowered thresholds, if combined with relevant hardware devices, such as Ebunker’s eNode, allowing home-level validator devices to reach households, Ethereum will still have the most nodes and be the most decentralized public chain globally.
Although the vision of Beam Chain will not immediately change Ethereum or significantly alter its long-term roadmap, its adoption will change the priority of roadmap development and accelerate the development of certain components (for example, the current roadmap sets some important upgrades for 2029, while Beam Chain may speed up the arrival of important updates).
If Beam Chain receives enough community support, developers can start drafting specifications next year, followed by production-level code written by the development client team in 2026, and testing in 2027, before it can be safely deployed on the Ethereum mainnet. Although the implementation of Beam Chain seems far off, such security redundancy is crucial for decentralized development of open-source software.
In short, Beam Chain resolves the past 'technical debt' through ZK transformation, and these improvements are expected to greatly enhance its L1 functionality while preserving Ethereum's 'world-class decentralization'.
At the same time, long-term solutions such as quantum resistance introduced by new ideas will place Ethereum's consensus layer in 'maintenance mode', ensuring that Ethereum remains secure, efficient, and adaptable for decades to come, enabling future innovations without disruptive redesigns.
Ethereum is still tirelessly making long-term plans, which is an exciting update for the blockchain and the entire industry, allowing us to remain optimistic about Ethereum amidst the current booming market conditions.
