Users of Beam can transmit payments by simply using a link to a QR code, unlike users of most wallets who must join up and undergo some level of KYC verification. Thus, it seeks to develop the closest analog to utilizing cryptocurrency as cash.
Beam, a cryptocurrency wallet that has the support of well-known investors in digital assets, including venture capital goliath Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and Coinbase’s investment division (COIN), launched on Thursday.
Beam was created by Eco, a financial company that also created the Beam protocol. According to a Thursday email statement, the wallet will support the protocol’s native token ECO and stablecoin USDC.
Users of Beam can transmit payments by simply using a link to a QR code, unlike users of most wallets who must sign up and undergo some level of know-your-customer (KYC) checks. Thus, it seeks to develop the closest analog to utilizing cryptocurrency as cash.
The wallet is based on the layer-2 Ethereum blockchains Optimism and Base on Coinbase, the latter of which is scheduled to go live in the public next month.
Eco claimed that Beam was made possible by Optimism’s “Superchain” initiative and Ethereum’s ERC-4337 implementation, which are both seen as important improvements that could make it simpler for users to recover cryptocurrency if they lose private keys to an online wallet.
One of the issues that many developers are looking into resolving is how to make sending and receiving crypto more straightforward. Solving this issue could help accelerate the adoption of crypto by the general public. With the addition of the ability for businesses to take payments earlier this month, the Telegram messaging app’s Wallet bot permitted the sending of bitcoin in chats in March.
Between September 2019 and July 2021, Eco raised almost $95 million through five investment rounds, with Founders Fund, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Pantera Capital, a16z, and Coinbase Ventures among the investors.
