Original title: (What five new changes will Beam Chain bring to Ethereum?)
Original source: Ebunker Chinese
It is well known that Ethereum was born from PoW (Proof of Work) and successfully transitioned to PoS (Proof of Stake) in 2021. Regarding this, Ethereum Foundation core researcher Justin Drake 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 (like zero-knowledge proofs). Thus, Ethereum's consensus layer urgently needs a major 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 cutting-edge breakthroughs in current ZK cryptography, aiming to significantly enhance 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 enhance the transaction speed, security, and efficiency of the L1 mainnet. Some interpret Beam Chain as Ethereum 3.0, which is a misinterpretation 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: Enabling 4-second slot time and single-slot finality
2. Not at the expense of decentralization: Preserving or improving current decentralization guarantees
3. Lowering Staking Threshold: Reducing ETH Staking from 32 ETH to just 1 ETH
4. Protecting ordinary users: Eliminating MEV based on block reorganization
5. Future-oriented: Endowing the Ethereum network with quantum resistance
The upgrade ideas and principles of Beam Chain
1. Increasing block yield
Higher throughput: Beam Chain will increase block production to three times the current 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 allowing more users to be free from MEV disturbances.
Faster finality: Ethereum will feature single-slot finality and 4-second block times, enabling quicker transaction confirmations and improving network efficiency.
Interestingly, exchanges will no longer need to wait for 1/32, 2/32, 3/32... block confirmations, as confirmation will occur in a single block in the future.
2. Improving staking
Improving the issuance model: Changes in the reward issuance model for validators will lead to greater returns from staking.
Lowering staking requirements: Independent validators will 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 while maintaining a relatively unchanged hardware threshold and breaking the staking impossible triangle, it really relies on ZK technology, which is indeed leading the industry.
3. Enhancing security
Post-Quantum Cryptography: Ethereum will implement quantum-resistant cryptography to protect the network from threats posed by quantum computing, marking the first mainstream blockchain step towards 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 improves the efficiency and scalability of proof generation. SNARK is a compact form of zero-knowledge proof that allows one party to prove possession of 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.
Enhancing randomness: Ethereum will also introduce strong randomness to ensure fairness in critical network processes like selecting validators.
Reducing MEV risk: Improved censorship resistance will minimize the proliferation of bots like sandwich attacks.
4. How it works
Since the design of Ethereum's current consensus layer (the Beacon Chain) was established, significant progress has been made in SNARK by cryptographers. By SNARKifying Ethereum's state transition function (i.e., the messages that validators integrate to maintain a correct view of the blockchain), it can achieve 4-second slot time and single-slot finality.
On the one hand, the reduction in block production and finality times can positively impact the waiting time for Ethereum L1 transaction experience;
On the other hand, it can also eliminate potential value extracted from transactions through remote block reorganization strategies and reduce technical debt in the consensus layer.
Furthermore, SNARKification will provide the Ethereum network with quantum resistance, which is an essential feature for future blockchains.
Beam Chain will advance Ethereum's upgrades in several ways:
Using sharding to accelerate processing speed: Ethereum Beam Chain will utilize sharding technology to divide data into smaller parts (shards) to process multiple transactions simultaneously. This will reduce transaction bottlenecks and speed up transaction times.
Quantum-resistant 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 future expansion and enhanced security over the next five years.
5. Important significance
Beam Chain is crucial for Ethereum's ability to handle an increasing 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 aforementioned performance advantages. As the staking threshold decreases from 32 ETH to 1 ETH, the decentralization of the Ethereum staker community will also improve with enhanced network performance.
Particularly, the lowering of thresholds, when combined with relevant hardware devices like Ebunker’s eNode, can bring home-level validator devices to every household, making Ethereum still the public chain with the most nodes and highest decentralization globally.
Although Beam Chain's vision 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 specific components (for example, the current roadmap sets some important upgrades for 2029, whereas Beam Chain may hasten the arrival of significant upgrades).
If Beam Chain gains sufficient community support, developers can begin drafting specifications next year, then in 2026, the development team will write production-level code, followed by testing in 2027, before safely deploying it on the Ethereum mainnet. Although the implementation of Beam Chain seems distant, such security redundancies are extremely necessary for open-source software developed in a decentralized manner.
In summary, Beam Chain solves past 'technical debt' through a ZK approach, with these improvements expected to significantly enhance L1 functionality while retaining Ethereum's 'world-class decentralization'.
At the same time, the long-term solutions introduced with new ideas, such as quantum resistance, place Ethereum's consensus layer in 'maintenance mode', ensuring Ethereum remains secure, efficient, and adaptable for decades to come, enabling future innovations without disruptive redesigns.
Ethereum remains tirelessly making long-term plans, which is an exciting update for the blockchain and the entire industry, allowing us to maintain a foundation of optimism regarding Ethereum even in today's booming market.
