Ethereum researcher Justin Drake unveils new plan to supercharge the network

Ethereum researcher Justin Drake has proposed a redesign of the Beacon chain, called the "Beam chain," to increase decentralisation, update aging infrastructure, and add new cryptographic techniques. He presented the idea at the Devcon conference in Bangkok, saying the goal is a safe and fast transition from the current Beacon chain to a design much closer to Ethereum's final design. Drake said the Beacon chain, created five years ago, has become outdated, and that the upgrade would also guard against future quantum computing risks and speed up transactions. He estimated developers may not start writing code until 2026 and testing could last until 2029, and he said the community must agree before work begins. Reactions were mixed, with critics including Wei Dai arguing that network effects for rollups matter more.