Ethereum's most ambitious project: A quick look at what Justin Drake mentioned about Beam Chain at Devcon in Bangkok.

Earlier, we mentioned that Ethereum researcher Justin Drake announced a proposal about the consensus layer called Beam Chain at Devcon in Bangkok. He described it as the most ambitious project to date. This report will briefly explain what Beam Chain is and explore whether the proposal addresses the Ethereum roadmap error issue raised by Max Resnick.

Beam Chain Improves Decentralization, Security, and Scalability Simultaneously

Justin Drake stated that the Beacon Chain, launched in 2020, is outdated. During this time, technology has progressed, including addressing MEV (Maximal Extractable Value) and technical debt. Technical debt refers to the compromises made in software development to quickly launch or meet short-term needs, which can lead to increased system maintenance costs in the long run. Additionally, SNARK technology has also advanced during this period.

Beam Chain will focus on finality and higher throughput, allowing transactions to be completed within three epochs. The staking requirement will also be reduced, with the staking threshold lowered to 1 ETH, compared to the current 32 ETH threshold. Recent trends suggest that these changes may make Ethereum more decentralized. However, Justin Drake emphasized that Beam Chain is an improvement upon the Beacon Chain rather than a change in the roadmap.

Other enhancements include separating attestors and proposers to strengthen the review system in block production. In terms of cryptography, the proposal introduces SNARKify consensus layer to enhance security and efficiency, while preparing the mainnet to combat future quantum threats.

In this light, the Beam Chain proposal simultaneously addresses three major issues: lowering node thresholds to achieve apparent decentralization, SNARKify improving security and scalability.

Focus on Ethereum Mainnet Proposal: Beam Chain Expected to Officially Launch in 2030

In response, KOL @nake13 mentioned more details, noting that everything is still in the proposal stage and will ultimately go through community proposals. Optimistically, technical documentation will be generated between 2025 and 2026, development will commence between 2026 and 2027, and deployment will happen between 2028 and 2029, suggesting that the launch may not be until 2030 at the earliest. The development of Beam Chain will run parallel to Ethereum's upgrades, with Ethereum's next Pectra upgrade estimated to take place between the end of this year and the first quarter of next year.

He also summarized key points of the proposal, including faster block times, quicker finality times, ZK-ization of the consensus layer, quantum threat resistance, and addressing technical debt as mentioned earlier. He also mentioned two groups, Zeam in India and Lambda in South America, focusing on the client-side development of Beam Chain.

This proposal brings to mind Max Resnick, a former Ethereum developer, who previously mentioned that Ethereum was on the wrong path. Despite many areas for improvement, he believed the Ethereum mainnet was sufficient. The Ethereum team should focus on the scalability of the mainnet instead of relying on Layer 2 solutions. Justin Drake's proposal now revolves around the expansion of the Ethereum mainnet, although it may still take a considerable amount of time to be officially implemented.

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