Original title: (Will Beam Chain bring five major changes to Ethereum?)
Original source: Ebunker Chinese
As we all know, 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 while the Beacon Chain was very effective when PoS was first introduced, it has accumulated some 'technical debt' over the past five years, and its design has not utilized cutting-edge technologies in decentralized systems (such as zero-knowledge proofs). Therefore, Ethereum's consensus layer urgently needs a significant overhaul.
In a speech at the recent Bangkok Devcon, Ethereum researcher Justin Drake announced a proposal for a complete reform of 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 to significantly improve network scalability and performance without the need to launch 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, which will significantly enhance the transaction speed, security, and efficiency of the L1 mainnet. Some interpret Beam Chain as Ethereum 3.0, which is a misunderstanding, as Beam Chain only addresses consensus layer issues without changing 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: Enabling 4-second slot time and single-slot finality
2. Not at the expense of decentralization: Preserve or improve current decentralization guarantees
3. Lowering the staking threshold: Reducing ETH staking from 32 ETH to 1 ETH
4. Protect ordinary users: Eliminate MEV based on block reorganization
5. Future-oriented: Equipping the Ethereum network with quantum resistance
Upgrade ideas and principles of Beam Chain
1. Increased block output
Higher throughput: Beam Chain will increase block production to three times the current rate to enhance Ethereum's transaction capacity.
Anti-censorship: 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, as well as protecting more users from MEV interference.
Faster finality: Ethereum will have single-slot finality and a block time of 4 seconds, resulting in quicker transaction confirmations and improved network efficiency.
Interestingly, exchanges no longer need to slowly wait for block confirmations of 1/32, 2/32, 3/32... as future confirmations can be done in a single block.
2. Improved staking
Improved issuance model: Changes to the reward issuance model for validators will allow staking to receive more rewards.
Lowered staking requirements: Independent validators only need to stake 1 ETH, far below the current threshold of 32 ETH, making independent staking simpler and more widespread.
We believe that for Ethereum to accommodate more nodes participating in consensus at a faster pace without significantly changing hardware requirements, it must break the impossible triangle of staking, which is truly credited to ZK technology, putting it significantly ahead of the industry.
3. Enhanced security
Post-quantum cryptography: Ethereum will implement anti-quantum cryptography to protect the network from quantum computing threats, taking the first step toward mainstream blockchain quantum resistance.
Integration of zkSNARK and zkVM: Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZKP) will be integrated with Ethereum through zkSNARK and zkVM to further enhance privacy, scalability, and security.
SNARKification of the blockchain: Ethereum will use RISC-V to SNARKify the blockchain, a process that can improve the efficiency and scalability of proof generation. SNARK is a compact form of zero-knowledge proof that allows one party to prove it possesses information without revealing the information or requiring interaction between the prover and verifier.
In short, we can summarize it as: Directly ZKifying the entire Ethereum.
Enhanced randomness: Ethereum will also introduce strong randomness to ensure fairness in critical network processes such as validator selection.
Reduced MEV risk: Better censorship resistance can minimize the proliferation of bots such as sandwich attacks.
4. How it works
Since the design of Ethereum's current consensus layer (the Beacon Chain) was determined, significant progress has been made in SNARK by cryptographers. By SNARKifying Ethereum's state transition function (i.e., the messages of state changes integrated for validators to maintain a correct view of the blockchain), 4-second slot times and single-slot finality can be achieved.
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 eliminate potential value extraction from transactions through remote block reorganization strategies and reduce technical debt in the consensus layer.
Moreover, SNARKification will give the Ethereum network quantum resistance, which is an essential feature for future blockchains.
Beam Chain will advance Ethereum's upgrade from the following aspects:
Sharding to accelerate processing speed: Ethereum's Beam Chain will use sharding technology to divide data into smaller parts (shards) for simultaneous processing of multiple transactions. This will reduce transaction bottlenecks and speed up transaction times.
Quantum computing security: Ethereum will utilize 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 security enhancement over the next 5 years.
5. Significant meaning
The Beam Chain is crucial for Ethereum's ability to handle the growing number 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 that they allow ordinary stakers equipped with standard hardware to achieve the performance advantages mentioned above. As the staking threshold decreases from 32 ETH to 1 ETH, the decentralization of Ethereum's staker community will also improve with the enhanced network performance.
Especially the reduction of the threshold, which, when combined with related hardware devices such as Ebunker’s eNode, will enable home-level validator equipment to reach thousands of households. Ethereum remains the public chain with the most nodes and the highest decentralization worldwide.
Although the vision of Beam Chain will not cause immediate changes to Ethereum nor significantly alter its long-term roadmap, its adoption will change the priority of roadmap development and accelerate the development of specific components (for example, the current roadmap sets some important upgrades for 2029, while Beam Chain may hasten the arrival of these upgrades).
If Beam Chain receives sufficient community support, developers can start drafting specifications next year, then production-grade code will be written by the development team in 2026, and testing will occur in 2027, before it can be safely deployed on the Ethereum mainnet. Although the implementation of Beam Chain seems far off, these security redundancies are extremely necessary for decentralized, open-source software.
In short, Beam Chain, through the ZKification approach, solves the past 'technical debt', and these improvements are expected to significantly enhance its L1 functionality while retaining Ethereum's 'world-class decentralization'.
At the same time, long-term solutions introduced by new ideas, such as quantum resistance, will place Ethereum's consensus layer in 'maintenance mode', ensuring that Ethereum remains secure, efficient, and adaptable over the coming decades, enabling future innovations without disruptive redesign.
Ethereum continues to diligently make long-term plans, which is an exciting update for the blockchain and the entire industry, allowing us to maintain an optimistic foundation for Ethereum even in today's booming market conditions.
Original link
Welcome to join the official community of Rhythm BlockBeats:
Telegram subscription group: https://t.me/theblockbeats
Telegram discussion group: https://t.me/BlockBeats_App
Official Twitter account: https://twitter.com/BlockBeatsAsia
