Beam update, plus Grin comparison

May

Beam update, plus Grin comparison

News

We’ve always been fans of Mimblewimble and its two major implementations, Grin and Beam. There’s just been a key update from the Beam Team, so we thought it was good timing to revisit them and compare the two side-by-side.

At the start of this year, Inferno took a look at two coins launched on the Mimblewimble protocol – a fast, scalable blockchain implementation that offers incredible privacy advantages. (In short, while other privacy coins obscure addresses and amounts on the blockchain, Mimblewimble has found a way to avoid putting them there in the first place. Magic? Yes, pretty much.) You can read our articles about Grin and Beam for background.

Beam has recently held an AMA, which offers a huge amount of detail about the project – both in terms of the tech and how it all works, to the regulatory and compliance aspects and the business development side. You can read the full transcript of the AMA here. A few highlights include Android and iOS mobile wallets, implementation of a Lightning-like system, and soon-to-be-launched Atomic Swaps.

Grin vs Beam

Any mention of Beam automatically prompts a comparison with Grin, so we’ll give our thoughts here on which might prove the better short-term and long-term investment.

Grin has unlimited supply so massive early inflation, which will most likely drive the price down significantly and give buyers a lot longer before it’s worth getting into and the price starts to rise. On top of that, it has only one full-time dev and is poorly funded, so is higher risk. Plus the slower pace of development means its software is a lot harder to use. In short, timing will likely be critical for Grin: it’s a great project, but there will be a sweet spot where the tech starts to become more accessible and the large early mining rewards and inflation start to reduce and their downward pressure on the market fades. Its grassroots appeal and cypherpunk culture mean it has the potential for widespread adoption – even some Bitcoin maximalists have shown an interest.

Beam, meanwhile, works off the peg, is well funded, has a great development roadmap, and its supply is limited. It will also have an early halving at the end of this year, with 20% mined by then and 60% mined by the end of year 5. The price of Beam has also been hit in the early months of this year by that high inflation in the early weeks, just like any other mined currency. However, the fixed supply and accelerated halving schedule means there’s likely more limited time to act before it takes off.

Add to that the fact that Grin has large exchanges already and Beam doesn’t (so is still waiting for that liquidity event), and it’s a pretty compelling combination of factors in the shorter term. Grin, meanwhile, is positioned more as a currency rather than store of value. In that respect, they’re not in competition at all (and, in fact, the dev teams are in constant contact). Grin is more like cash, Beam more like gold. But long term, they both look good.

For a more detailed comparison, take a look here.