Hey BEAMers, some excellent news for you today as Summer 2018 already looks far from us. Are you ready? So let’s go!

BEAM’s Testnet is live

We said it from Day 1 of BEAM: We aim to dream, design, develop, and launch a true privacy coin based on Mimblewimble when privacy, scalability, and fungibility are the X-Factors.

We’re humbly convinced our technical approach and architecture is one of the significant steps toward building a truly viable and scalable private financial ecosystem for both individuals and businesses. We’re perfectly aware of the fact our industry is often overcrowded with theories, ideas and sometimes utopic approaches but under-saturated with practical projects.

BEAM has always been more than determined to design and deploy viable solutions and not only propose them.

This is our commitment; this is our credo.

So today, we’re more than excited to announce the launch of BEAM’s Public Testnet.

We perfectly know that development of this kind of innovative approach is a rough and repetitive process. We’re not forking an existing Blockchain; we’re creating a brand new ecosystem with the help of some of the most talented developers. As we move along our roadmap, we perfectly know we’ll face together some challenges; some are unforeseen from now. BEAM’s development and deployment is about transparency and openness. We always will communicate with our communities when it comes to addressing problems and issues when we promise we will create better solutions.

Unboxing BEAM

Let’s unbox together BEAM’s Testnet and check what there’s inside the box?

On the downloads page, you can find three binaries for each platform. These are GUI Wallet application, command line wallet and the node itself.

The GUI Wallet is best suited for those who want to experience BEAM in a user-friendly convenient way.

At first launch, you will be able to select whether you want to connect to a random testnet node, connect to the specific node by IP (either local or remote) or run a local node with CPU mining on your local machine.

Whichever option you select, your initial balance will be zero, but you can always ask for Testnet BEAMs on either of our community channels.

You are more than welcome to report any bugs or usability issues you might encounter by either writing an email to testnet@beam-mw.com or by opening a ticket on our Github page.

The command line node and wallet are better suited for professionals looking to either run local setups or investigate BEAM flags and options.

Detailed instructions on how to operate those are published on Github.

BEAM Testnet includes a fully functional node with built-in Equihash CPU miner, fast sync support, complete transaction, and block validation, Bulletproofs with batch validation and offline transactions using secure bulletin board system (SBBS).

SBBS allows wallets to create transactions without being online at the same time, by sending encrypted messages to a temporary SBBS address.

These addresses are only used by wallets to establish a communication channel, they are not related to coins and are not recorded in the blockchain.

From now? What’s next?

In the next BEAM release, called Testnet 2, we will have a couple of significant changes. Some of these noteworthy changes are:

Addition of Dandelion with transaction merging along the stem phase. Dandelion is a method of transaction routing which first sends transactions to a series of random nodes before broadcasting them to the entire network. When presented as a diagram it resembles the dandelion with a long stem and a fluffy head, hence the name. In Mimblewimble, transactions can be merged along the stem phase using a neat trick (called kernel offset ) in a way that makes same inseparable. As a result this prevents any identification of individual transactions.

with transaction merging along the stem phase. Dandelion is a method of transaction routing which first sends transactions to a series of random nodes before broadcasting them to the entire network. When presented as a diagram it resembles the dandelion with a long stem and a fluffy head, hence the name. In Mimblewimble, transactions can be merged along the stem phase using a neat trick (called ) in a way that makes same inseparable. As a result this prevents any identification of individual transactions. Atomic swaps with Bitcoin will allow trading BEAM directly for Bitcoins using a particular type of transaction, all that directly from a BEAM Wallet.

will allow trading BEAM directly for Bitcoins using a particular type of transaction, all that directly from a BEAM Wallet. Mobile wallet Alpha , initially only available for Android OS.

, initially only available for Android OS. Blockchain explorer, mining and exchange APIs and more…

How can you get started?

To get started it’s effortless. You need to download and install the wallet from the following link: https://www.beam-mw.com/downloads

To get the instructions, please visit this link or read what comes next.

1. Download the application and install BEAM Wallet on your OS (for now: MacOS, Windows and Linux)

2. Once the App is launched, you will discover a Welcome Page where you’re invited to create a new wallet. Please proceed.

3. Choose an option to connect the Wallet to a node. For now, you can either Run a local testnet node, Connect to a remote node or Connect to a randomly selected node for Testnet.

4. Define a Secret Key (Seed) which is used as a basis for the pseudorandom key generator for your wallet. For the Testnet’s matter, any long random string will correctly work.

5. Define your Password. Use a secured one, and it will help you unlock your wallet.

6. You’ve reached your BEAM’s Wallet Dashboard where you can check your balance and your transactions status. You can either choose to Receive or to Send BEAMs.

7. Let’s say you’re going to send BEAMs. You have to define the Receiver Address, the Amount of BEAMs to be sent, the Transaction Fee and to add a comment eventually. Click on Send.

8. Let’s say now you’re going to receive BEAMs. Click on the button Receive, check your address, add a comment and click on the button “Copy and Close.” Provide the sender with your address.

9. Let’s say you’re willing to mine. Click on Settings on the Left menu. Choose the Local Node Mode and get one of the following available IPs: