Justin Drake is an Ethereum researcher who has introduced a proposal for reworking Ethereum’s layer of consensus. “Beam Chain.” A packed Devcon audience in Bangkok was shown this redesign today. It aims at modernizing a portion of Ethereum’s infrastructure core while maintaining compatibility.
“I want to take what may sound like a totally crazy idea and convince you that it might not be so crazy,” He said.
It is intended to speed up certain parts of Ethereum’s roadmap in order to benefit from cryptographic advances, to address any existing inefficiencies, and to clear the technical debt that has been accrued since the design of Beacon Chain was created five years ago, Ethereum’s current consensus layer.
Beams and Beacons
Beacon Chain was officially launched Dec. 1, 20 2020. This marked the start of Ethereum’s transition from a consensus system based on proof-of stake (PoS), and kicked off Ethereum 2.0. The Beacon Chain ran separately from Ethereum until the Merge in September 2022. This unified both networks under a PoS consensus.
The blockchain is evolving rapidly, and now researchers have a better understanding of complicated elements such as Maximum Extractable Value. The development of cryptographic tools such as SNARKs, (succinct arguments without interaction), and zkVMs (zero knowledge virtual machines) has given Ethereum a new way to decentralize and secure with more efficiency.
Beam Chain’s proposal offers improvements in three key areas. First, it tackles block production by decentralizing the builder and relay levels, enhancing censorship resistance, and introducing faster slot times — four-second blocks with faster finality — while still accommodating a wider range of validators, including home stakers.
“The truth is that five years ago our mindset was ‘security first’…performance was not really a main consideration,” Drake said to the audience. “With the benefit of hindsight, we found that there are designs that preserve all the security that we want and at the same time take some of the low-hanging fruit that is available to us to prove performance.”
Second, this proposal reimagines Ethereum’s staking system by lowering minimum ETH required to become a validater. Staking could be made more affordable by reducing the minimum required ETH from 32 to only 1 ETH.
Beam will also incorporate SNARK-based post-quantum encryption using hash signatures to enable real-time proof of consensus on standard hardware. This ensures Ethereum is resilient as quantum computing technology develops.
Drake highlighted an important nuance — the off-chain nature of the proposed “SNARKification” Beam Chain. This choice of design ensures flexibility by allowing validators the option to select their preferred zkVM Implementations, whether based upon RISCV or another architecture.
It should not be a threat to alternative VMs like StarkWare Cairo and ZKsync custom zkVM.
The modular approach allows for a flexible zkVM, and separates proof generation away from the Ethereum main chain. Off-chain SNARKification allows zkVMs to be upgraded independently if they encounter a bug, or if performance is slowed down. In this way, different zkVMs are able to integrate smoothly, maintaining Ethereum’s compatibility and not being locked into a specific standard.
Drake said that he was confident the Beam Chains proposal would pass. “quantum leap” Ethereum will move forward with a holistic upgrade that combines all the essential improvements into one change. This is to get Ethereum’s consensus layer ready for an ossified state. “maintenance mode.”
However, he avoids calling his plan “a plan”. “Ethereum 3.0” since the Beam Chain addresses only the consensus layer without altering the data layer — blob channels — or the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM).
Is it better to take the long route or make a quick decision?
Drake’s Roadmap suggests that the initial phase of research would start in 2025. Then, production code will be developed in 2026. Comprehensive testing is then conducted in 2027-2028.
This timeline raised eyebrows among non-developers and prompted groans.
Max Resnick and Jon Charbonneau, among others, have suggested more radical scalability options are required given Ethereum’s competitive landscape.
Some of the most important components, like improvements in consensus or state management, may require years for implementation, delaying the tangible benefits. In the short term, they may not bring about any significant changes.
This is not enough speed for the chorus of observers who are calling for faster enhancements. Some members of the Ethereum community have criticized the plan, including Gnosis’ co-founder Martin Koeppelmann. “a big refactoring” Ethereum Foundation’s lack of urgency is a cause for concern
Taproot Wizards’ self-proclaimed “troll-demon” Eric Wall answered with just one word. “No.”
Cygaar of X argues that Beam Chain’s 5-year timeline reflects how difficult it is to make major changes on the world’s 2nd largest blockchain. When there’s $60 billion TVL on the table and over $400 billion of assets, being conservative is a good idea.
Ethereum’s centralization is different from other systems or companies. It requires extensive consensus on the part of society, a meticulous specification, compatibility with older versions, and rigorous testing in order to prevent vulnerabilities.
Justin Drake welcomed this new consensus as an opportunity for Ethereum to bring on new teams of clients from regions that are underrepresented, such as India and South America. This shows Ethereum’s dedication to decentralization by bringing together a diverse, global technical team.
While still in the proposal stage and thus likely to change, Beam represents a vision for Ethereum’s future — one that embraces zero-knowledge proofs and post-quantum cryptography for a faster, more secure and decentralized ecosystem.
It is important to know if it can satisfy the market in a timely manner.
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