Today marks the debut of a new cryptocurrency, called Beam – one of two highly-anticipated privacy coins implemented with the so-called “mimblewimble” protocol.
The mimblewimble protocol, which is touted as a way to make transactions confidential and virtually untraceable, first appeared in the summer of 2016, and has been widely anticipated ever since.
While another cryptocurrency, called Grin, was first theorized for the protocol at the end of 2016, Beam, which was conceived of only in March 2018, launched ahead of Grin, today at 1:40 UTC. Yet Grin developers have said they'll be releasing their coin in the next couple weeks, on January 15.