Read this pre-mainnet primer on MimbleWimble, Grin and Beam. Answer the questions and post your answers below:
Questions:
Describe the difference between GRIN’s and BEAM’s…
a. Funding
b. Governance
c. Target Customer
d. Emission Schedules
What is the key privacy concern of both, and what feature do they implement to deal with this?
1.Grin followes a highly principled, cypherpunk ideology is community driven – including no token premine or ICO, as well as volunteer-based development – Beam sought VC funding and hired a team of developers, is more business oriented. Differences in the design choices hint that while Grin maintains an emphasis on community-driven decentralization, Beam stands out for its sharper business sense and aims for mass adoption
2.Both cryptocurrency projects have plans to implement new and experimental features. both teams currently implement a privacy feature named Dandelion to better conceal these potential leaks
Describe the difference between GRIN’s and BEAM’s…
Funding
GRIN’s Funding: Donations
BEAM’s Funding: Startup Company funding
GRIN’s Governance: Relying on community funding model that is similar to the one utilized by the Monero Project
BEAM’s Governance: Corporate Structure like Zcash
GRIN’s Target Customer: Technical Crowd
BEAM’s Target Customer: Non-Technical People
GRIN’s Emission Schedules: A new token is issued every second, this is due to the project’s belief that sustained issuance will stabilize the value of the currency
BEAM’s Emission Schedules:Fixed issuance schedule akin to Bitcoin
May potentially be vulnerable to machine-learning analysis – due to teh designs failure to conceal inputs and outputs – are also under discussion. They will undergo regular system-wide software updates, or hard forks, in their early days.
2.What the designs have in common is their basis in the privacy-oriented protocol, Mimblewimble.
Grin: based on donations
Beam: funded through part of block rewards and VC funding
b. Governance
Grin: community driven, no organisation
Beam: corporate structure
c. Target Customer
d. Emission Schedules
Grin: infinite supply, one coin per second
Beam: fixed supply
Funding, G: volunteer based, B: VC Funding
Governance, G: community based model, B: corporate structure, foundation
Target customer, G: for people looking for a currency, B: for people interested in a store of value asset
Emission schedules, Both aims to launch their Mainers (first step)
Vulnerability to machine-learning analysis. So they regularly undergo system-wide software upgrade.
| Grin | Beam | |
|---|---|---|
| Funding | Volunteer based development; no premine, no ico. | VC funded, dedicated team of developers |
| Governance | Relying on a community funding model that is similar to the one utilized by the monero project; while it’s a less reliable income source, Grin sees this as an advantage that ultimately increases the security of the project. | For example, Beam takes its example from privacy-centric cryptocurrency zcash, maintaining a corporate structure, and funneling a portion of the block reward into a Foundation to support the blockchain’s development. |
| Target Customer | Technical users only, with command line wallet | As much users as possible to increase adoption and anonymity set, through a friendly graphical user interface wallet. |
| Emission Schedules | Aims to be a currency, monetary policy is unfixed: new token is issued every second. | Aims to be a store of value like bitcoin, and has a similar issuance policy. |
1-
a. Grin followed a highly principled, cypherpunk ideology – including no token premine or ICO, as well as volunteer-based development – Beam sought VC funding and hired a team of developers to work on the software full-time, allowing it to speed ahead of Grin in its implementation. “Grin is structured as a research project. They do not receive any outside funding except for donations, they do it part-time, they’re doing it very slowly,” Romanov said.
b. Grin takes a different approach, relying on a community funding model that is similar to the one utilized by the monero project. And while it’s a less reliable income source, Grin sees this as an advantage that ultimately increases the security of the project.
Beam takes its example from privacy-centric cryptocurrency zcash, maintaining a corporate structure, and funneling a portion of the block reward into a Foundation to support the blockchain’s development.
c.Beam has a heavy emphasis on usability, having built a simple wallet interface that is considered central to the project’s overall value-add.In addition to being designed from a user-friendly perspective, the wallet boasts implementations in different operating systems, including MacOS, Windows, and Linux. Beam will also release a light client alongside its mainnet release.
Grin, however, currently only offers a command-line wallet, and is less accessible for non-technical users.
d. For both cryptocurrencies, the launch of their mainnets represents only the first step. Both cryptocurrency projects have plans to implement new and experimental features. For example, Beam cited its plans to integrate with BOLT, the privacy-centric lightning implementation, as well as adding atomic swaps and other features.Yeastplume from Grin cited “tentative plans for enhancements,” while Peverell from beam said that “we have tons of improvements in usability, scalability and privacy in mind.”
2- Concerns that both implementations may potentially be vulnerable to machine-learning analysis – due to the design’s failure to conceal inputs and outputs. They implement Dandelion to better conceal these potential leaks.
a. Funding
Grin: based on donations
Beam: funded through part of block rewards and VC funding
b. Governance
Grin: community driven, no organisation
Beam: corporate structure
c. Target Customer
Grin: targets technical users
Beam: goes for mainstream adoption
d. Emission Schedules
Grin: infinite supply, one coin per second
Beam: fixed supply
1a. grin is community funded, by donations. beam is more "professional, more business oriented with vc funding. beam stands out foor its biz sense and seeks wider adoption
1b.both intend to implement new features and continue to develop. both will use dandelion
1c grin is targeting more techies, beam, more mass adoption
1d., beam fixed supply, grim infinite supply, 1 grim per second
2. both use mimble wimble, both aim for more private and scalable solution
| Grin | Beam | |
|---|---|---|
| Funding | Donation, volunteer | Private from VC, portion of block rewards |
| Governance | Community driven | Corporate |
| Target Customer | Technical, researchers; command line wallet | Average consumer with pretty UIs, mobile wallet, and multiple OS support |
| Emission Schedule | Inflationary at stable rate (1/sec); encourage spending as currency | Limited similar to Bitcoin; store of value |
Both protocols do not conceal inputs or outputs, only masking their connections using MimbleWimble. This makes them vulnerable to timing attacks. They employ Dandylion to make it harder for attackers to monitor the network to sniff out individual transactions before they are aggregated together in MimbleWimble.
EDIT: the article listed after it is also interesting. It’s basically a continuation of the assignment article, talking about the privacy issues of GRIN/BEAM
Grin
a. Funding: donations.
b. Governance: cypherpunk ideology, volunteer-base development, simmilar to Monero.
c. Target Customer: technical users, only CLI for the moment.
d. Emission Schedules: one new token each second.
Beam:
a. Funding: VC funding and % of block reward.
b. Governance: corporate structure, similar to Zcash.
c. Target Customer: usability, with a GUI and mobile wallet.
d. Emission Schedules: fixed emission.
Thanks for the article, good find! 
Funding
Grin does not receive outside funding except for donations and relies on volunteer-based development.
Beam sought VC funding and hired a team of developers to work on the software full-time
Governance
Grin is open-source, relying on community funding similar to monero, does not engage in ICO, pre-mine, founder’s rewards, or similar activities.
Beam maintains a corporate structure, funneling a portion of the block reward into a Foundation to support development.
Target Customer
Grin only offers a command-line wallet and is more geared to technical users.
Beam has a user-friendly perspective, having built a simple GUI wallet interface and mobile wallet, and supports different operating systems.
Emission Schedules
Grin has unfixed issuance - new tokens are generated every second, considered more of a currency than a store of value.
Beam has a fixed issuance schedule similar to bitcoin and considers it a store of value.
b. Governance
Grin-open-source and community-driven by design.
Beam- takes its example from privacy-centric cryptocurrency zcash, maintaining a corporate structure.
c. Target Customer
Beam has a heavy emphasis on usability, having built a simple wallet interface that is considered central to the project’s overall value-add.
Grin, only offers a command-line wallet, and is less accessible for non-technical users.
d. Emission Schedules
Beam sees itself as a “store of value” .
Grin sees itself as a currency, not a ‘store of value’.
1. Describe the difference between GRIN’s and BEAM’s…
a. Funding
Grin simply relied on donations and volunteer-based development; whereas, Beam sought venture capital funding to hire full-time developers.
b. Governance
Beam applied a corporate structure (similar to Zcash) with portions of the block reward allocated to a foundation. Staying true to the cypherpunk ethos, Grin utilized the community-funding model (similar to Monero).
c. Target Customer
Grin’s audience consists of techy “OG” crypto enthusiasts; whereas, Beam appeals most to average crypto users and investors.
d. Emission Schedules
Beam’s emission schedule will resemble Bitcoin with a fixed emission. Grin currently emits 1 Grin per second with the official emission remaining unfixed.
2. What is the key privacy concern of both, and what feature do they implement to deal with this?
The key privacy concern of both lies in their wide-open inputs and outputs. They implemented Dandelion to temporarily deal with this.
Describe the difference between GRIN’s and BEAM’s…
Funding
GRIN: volunter-based development.
BEAM: VC funding.
Governance
BEAM: maintaining a corporate structure, and funneling a portion of the block reward into a Foundation to support the blockchain’s development.
GRIN: relying on a community funding model that is similar to the one utilized by the monero project.
Target Customer
BEAM: non-technical users. More broader audience.
GRIN: for more technical users.
Emission Schedules
BEAM: fixed supply. Meant to be a store of value (like BTC).
GRIN: non-fixed supply. Meant to be a currency.
What is the key privacy concern of both, and what feature do they implement to deal with this?
Potential vulnerability against machine-learning analysis. To deal with this both projects want to implement Dandelion.