Ethereum (ETH) has dropped just 1% on Tuesday, even as major advances were offered at the Ethereum Devcon conference. In a bid to fast track Ethereum’s roadmap with upgrades that would lead to faster block times and stronger quantum security, developer Justin Drake proposed a new consensus layer known as the ‘Beam Chain.’
With these proposed improvements, we hope to deal with Ethereum’s technical debt and advance the Ethereum’s journey to its “endgame.” This Beam Chain is intended to complement the existing Beacon Chain with faster slots, lower staking commitments, quantum security, and zk-SNARK based ‘chain snarkification’.
The Role of Beam Chain in Accelerating Ethereum’s Roadmap
Faster slots could make blocks finalize faster, enabling shorter transaction times and reducing MEV (Maximum Extractable Value) a practice by which validators prioritize the best transactions for a profit, sometimes at users’ expense. This, however, could result in centralization nodes as faster speeds may need hardwares.
On the horizon, quantum computing, and the proposal reiterates the need to have quantum resistant forms of cryptography to keep the Ethereum network safe from future threats. Additionally, zk-SNARKs (a type of zero knowledge proof) would also be chain snarkified improving privacy and efficiency.
The Beam Chain is the result of a number of high priority updates which have been dubbed the “new era of consensus” following the recent ETH transition from Proof-of-Work (PoW) to Proof-of-Stake (PoS).
According to Drake, Ethereum’s move to upgraded its ecosystem in an incremental fashion releasing an update each year has slowed down progress too much and the full roadmap may require a decade. But the Beam Chain would allow ETH to handle major upgrades over several years in packaged batches.
While others are worried about the elongated development time, others like Abstract Chain contributor @OxCygaar says that there’s never truly too much planning for a decentralized network like ETH. In 2026, development of code for the Beam Chain will begin and by 2029 to 2030 it will be released.
At the same time, Ethereum ETF’s received record one day inflows on Fidelity and BlackRock’s efforts, marking sustained investor interest despite the current dip of the precious blockchain. Analysts wait for ETH bounce off important support levels as it trades near its price.
