Beam, a privacy-focused cryptocurrency based on the mimblewimble protocol, completed the first of two pre-scheduled hard forks in place to deter ASIC miners. The fork made tweaks to the mining algorithm which is based on Equihash, the same algorithm used by Zcash. The fork took place at block height 321,321 and introduced the hashing algorithm Beam Hash II. The new hashing algorithm is also designed to be more efficient and scalable. The Beam network launched in January 2019 and has had a company driving the launch and adoption of the network to date. Alexander Zaidelson, CEO of the Beam company, noted that the fork was in place to “signal to ASIC developers that there is no point in starting to work on an ASIC before the second fork”. Grin – another popular cryptocurrency launched on the mimblewimble protocol – recently hard forked in July also as part of a predetermined plan to deter ASIC miners.
Source: Messari
