Original title: (What five major changes will Beam Chain bring to Ethereum?)
Original source: Ebunker Chinese
As is well known, Ethereum was born from PoW (Proof of Work) and successfully transitioned to PoS (Proof of Stake) in 2021. Regarding this, 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, as its design has not leveraged cutting-edge technologies of decentralized systems (such as zero-knowledge proofs). Therefore, the consensus layer of Ethereum urgently needs a major overhaul.
At the recent Devcon in Bangkok, Ethereum researcher Justin Drake announced a proposal for a complete overhaul of Ethereum's consensus layer, called 'Beam Chain.'
This is part of Ethereum's long-term roadmap, allowing Ethereum to leverage the results 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 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 the 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 times and single-slot finality.
2. Without sacrificing decentralization: Preserving or enhancing current decentralization guarantees.
3. Lowering the Staking Threshold: Reducing ETH Staking from 32 ETH to 1 ETH.
4. Protecting ordinary users: Eliminating MEV based on block reorganization.
5. Future-oriented: Equipping the Ethereum network with quantum capabilities.
The upgrade ideas and principles of Beam Chain.
1. Increasing block production.
Higher throughput: Beam Chain will increase block production to three times the current amount to enhance Ethereum's transaction capacity.
Anti-censorship: The introduction of FOCIL (Fork Choice Mandatory Inclusion List) enhances resistance to censorship, 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, and allowing more users to be shielded from MEV interference.
Faster finality: Ethereum will have single-slot finality and 4-second block time characteristics, allowing for quicker transaction confirmations and enhancing network efficiency.
Interestingly, exchanges will no longer need to wait slowly for block confirmations of 1/32, 2/32, 3/32… because in the future, a single block will suffice for confirmation.
2. Improving staking.
Improved issuance model: Changes to the reward issuance model for validators to provide greater returns on staking.
Lowering staking requirements: Independent validators will only need to stake 1 ETH, far below the current 32 ETH threshold, making independent staking easier and more widespread.
We believe that for Ethereum to accommodate more nodes participating in consensus while speeding up and not significantly changing hardware requirements, breaking the staking impossible triangle is truly attributable to ZK technology, which is indeed leading the industry significantly.
3. Enhanced security.
Post-quantum cryptography: Ethereum will implement quantum-resistant cryptography to ensure the network is protected against quantum computing threats, taking the first step towards 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 utilize 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 it or requiring interaction between the prover and verifier.
In summary, we can encapsulate this as: making the entire Ethereum directly ZK-enabled.
Enhanced randomness: Ethereum will also introduce strong randomness to ensure fairness in key network processes such as validator selection.
Reducing MEV risk: Better resistance to censorship can minimize the proliferation of bots such as sandwich attacks.
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 integrating state changes that validators need to maintain a correct view of the blockchain), it achieves 4-second slot times and single-slot finality.
On one hand, the reduction in block production and finality times can positively impact the waiting time for Ethereum L1 transaction experiences.
On the other hand, it can also eliminate potential value extracted from transactions through remote block reorganization strategies and reduce the technical debt of the consensus layer.
Additionally, SNARKification will provide the Ethereum network with quantum resistance, a necessary feature for future blockchains.
Beam Chain will advance Ethereum's upgrade in the following ways:
Using sharding to speed up processing: Ethereum's Beam Chain will use sharding technology to split 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 leverage cutting-edge cryptographic technologies 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 future roadmap for scaling and enhancing security.
5. Significant importance.
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, allowing the network to support more users and complex applications over time.
One major benefit of SNARK-based proofs is that it allows ordinary stakers equipped with standard hardware to achieve the aforementioned performance advantages. As the staking threshold is reduced from 32 ETH to 1 ETH, the decentralization of the Ethereum staking community will also improve with enhanced network performance.
Especially the lowering of thresholds, if combined with some related hardware devices, such as Ebunker’s eNode, allowing home-level validator devices to reach every household, Ethereum will still have the most nodes and be the most decentralized public blockchain worldwide.
Although the vision of Beam Chain will not cause immediate changes to Ethereum or significantly alter its long-term roadmap, its adoption will change the priority of roadmap development, accelerating the development of specific components (for example, the current roadmap sets some important upgrades for 2029, while Beam Chain may expedite the arrival of important upgrades).
If Beam Chain receives sufficient community support, developers can begin drafting specifications next year, followed by production-level code written by developer client teams in 2026, testing in 2027, and finally safely deploying on the Ethereum mainnet. Although the implementation of Beam Chain seems a bit distant, such security redundancies are extremely necessary for decentralized open-source software.
In short, Beam Chain solves past 'technical debt' through the ZK approach, and these improvements are expected to significantly enhance its L1 capabilities while preserving Ethereum's 'world-class decentralization.'
At the same time, long-term solutions introduced, such as quantum resistance, 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 redesign.
Ethereum continues to work tirelessly on long-term strategies, which is an exciting update for the blockchain and the entire industry, keeping our optimistic foundation in the current booming market.
