Beam Chain Consensus Layer Reconstruction on Ethereum: Ultimate Road or Technical Maze

Author: 0xNatalie

At the Devcon conference, Justin Drake, a core member of the Ethereum Foundation, proposed a comprehensive reconstruction of the Ethereum consensus layer called Beam Chain. By redesigning the consensus layer, it aims to mitigate the MEV problem, improve scalability and security, and apply ZK technology to achieve performance improvements. Beam Chain mainly follows the changes in the consensus layer and does not involve creating new tokens or changing the existing blockchain architecture.

The existing Consensus layer (Beacon Chain) of ETH has a history of five years. Although it performs well in security, technical debt continues to accumulate over time. Moreover, with the in-depth research on MEV and the rapid progress of ZK technology in the ETH community, the existing Consensus layer is insufficiently adaptable to emerging technologies. The Beam Chain reconstruction plan aims to remove technical burdens and make ETH more flexible and adaptable in the future.

Technical Highlights

At the technical level, Beam Chain has two features: achieving Snarkification through ZKVM and using hash-based aggregated signatures.

The Consensus layer is mainly responsible for how all Nodes in the network reach consensus on the state of the chain (such as transaction order, account balance, etc.). In the ETH network, the tasks of the Consensus layer include validating Blocks, verifying signatures, handling forks, and maintaining and updating account states. The key operation of the Consensus layer is state transition, that is, transitioning from the state of one Block (such as the account balance after a transaction) to the state of the next Block. These operations often involve a lot of computation, and Snarkification is a technique for transforming the computation process into a Zero-Knowledge Proof.

Beam Chain uses ZKVM to Snarkify the consensus layer by transforming the state transition function into Zero-Knowledge Proof. ZKVM is responsible for moving the computation process off-chain, thus reducing the on-chain computation burden. Each Node can confirm the correctness of the state by verifying the Zero-Knowledge Proof without the need for redundant computation. In addition, Beam Chain allows validators to select the appropriate ZKVM without forcing a specific ZKVM into the on-chain protocol.

Meanwhile, with the development of quantum computing, traditional encryption technologies such as elliptic curve encryption may face the risk of being cracked. This means that the security of current blockchain systems, such as Private Key and signature verification, may be compromised after the advent of Quantum Computers. To address this threat, Beam Chain has introduced a hash-based aggregate signature scheme. Hash functions have post-quantum security and can resist attacks from quantum computing. This scheme not only improves the efficiency of signature aggregation but also provides higher security for the future.

In addition, Beam Chain adopts PBS, introducing a list and conducting auctions to reduce the negative impact of MEV. It also plans to drop the minimum stake requirement for validators from 32 ETH to 1 ETH, further enhancing Decentralization. The transition of the entire Beam Chain will be phased, gradually replacing the functions of Beacon Chain, expected to take five years.

Community Opinions

Worries about development time: The community generally expresses concerns about the 5-year development cycle for Beam Chain, while some members also question whether the goal of Beam Chain is to gradually approach the characteristics of Solana, similar to Ethereum.

• Delphi Ventures founding partner José Maria Macedo expressed disappointment with Beam Chain. He believes that the core improvements of Beam Chain are nothing more than a codebase refactoring, including 4-second block time and ‘quantum resistance,’ but these changes are expected to be implemented by 2029-2030. Such improvements are not enough to maintain the advantage of ETH L1 in blockchain competition, and even unable to shape a narrative that gives Ethereum long-term competitiveness.
• Solana development platform Helius CEO Mert also expressed concerns about the development schedule of Beam Chain. If Beam Chain does need until 2029 to be released, Ethereum may struggle to maintain competitiveness in the rapidly evolving blockchain competition.
• EthStorage co-founder Qi Zhou believes that Beam Chain’s projected completion time of 2030 is too long. He suggests focusing on development using a single programming language, such as Rust or Go, to speed up implementation. Ethereum can refer to Cosmos’ “re-genesis” pattern for dealing with technical debt, which involves regenerating the genesis block of the blockchain while preserving the core state data of users and contracts, and removing redundant historical data and outdated code from the system. This thorough reset can address technical burdens and legacy issues.
• Hydrogen Labs co-founder Meir is worried that the timeline for Beam Chain is too long and may not meet the scalability needs of Ethereum as a full-featured blockchain. If Ethereum’s goal is to be an efficient blockchain platform rather than just a DA, it needs faster and more aggressive scalability improvements, rather than progressive optimization over the next five years.
• Abstract Developer cygaar explains why Beam Chain’s 5-year roadmap is necessary. He points out that Ethereum is not an ordinary small blockchain, it is the second largest blockchain in the world with a TVL of 60 billion dollars, a basic asset value of 400 billion dollars, and thousands of applications relying on it. It is extremely difficult to implement such large-scale changes on a distributed and real-time operating Ethereum network, and it involves great risks. Therefore, it requires long preparation and strict testing. Any mistake could result in significant user losses.
• ETH client Prysm maintainer terence expressed concerns about the long implementation time of Beam Chain, which is the ‘ultimate goal’ of Ethereum. During this period, Ethereum will continue to improve through Hard Forks. Some proposals in Beam Chain will help enhance Ethereum’s Decentralization and censorship resistance. Meanwhile, before implementation, Ethereum will continue to improve data availability, censorship resistance, EVM performance, etc., to meet evolving demands.
• Flashbots strategic lead Hasu believes that the Beam Chain proposal should not be excessively hyped, as it is a long-term project that will take at least 5 years to materialize, and most of the improvements are already on the technical roadmap. The real innovation lies in bundling these improvements for testing and eventually replacing the entire chain in the future, which should accelerate the process. However, many community members mistakenly view this proposal as an exciting ‘ETH 3.0’ release and even hope to emulate some of Solana’s features, leading to unmet expectations.
• MetaLeX founder gabrielShapir0 believes that the core value of Ethereum lies in its Decentralization and autonomy, while Beam Chain will significantly enhance these core features. Many people hope that Ethereum can provide different products, services, or cater to more popular trends and narratives, but that is not Ethereum’s positioning, but Solana’s direction.

Technical Challenges

• ETH Foundation core member Péter believes that the proposal of Beam Chain has too many changes bundled together, which has potential problems from both technical and governance perspectives. Technically, the combination of too many changes increases the possibility of errors. From a governance perspective, bundling multiple changes may lead to neglecting details and increase the risk of controversy. He suggests first addressing low-difficulty improvement tasks on the Beacon Chain, and then gradually implementing more complex changes in stages to allow the system to adapt gradually and avoid comprehensive reforms all at once. *ETH researcher mteam said that although the proposal of Beam Chain is announced as a new concept, it actually brings together many old ideas from the past. He supports this proposal, but is also concerned that this upgrade may interfere with the research of the execution layer. The execution layer and the consensus layer are two independent research directions that should be improved in parallel to avoid interference with each other.
• SMG Research Director Max Resnick said that Ethereum needs a grander vision and should not be constrained by five-year phased incremental improvements. He called for a return to Ethereum’s original intention to make it a global computing platform that helps developers solve the most complex coordination problems. He proposed goals that Ethereum should achieve in the next five years, including: achieving 1-second block time; single-slot finality for Cross-Chain Interaction interoperability; significantly increasing throughput (>1000 TPS); and multiple parallel proposers to achieve real-time censorship resistance capabilities.