There are a few reasons BEAM is taking market attention and winning the MW race, IMHO.
To preface this, I do believe the principles of GRIN are still stronger and longer term it will be a more antifragile project given the true open-source roots and developer talent. However, BEAM has done a better job on the so-called “business” and also user front – this is not surprising given their governance but it still an area of concern moving forward.
The biggest reason is the BEAM Wallet, bar none. Users want to feel like they have a homegrown, GUI-based, tested desktop client to transfer funds to from exchanges. I believe you can also mine BEAM from the wallet. Right now, yes, GRIN has Ironbelly, Grin++, etc but I’m sorry to say, these aren’t appealing to the average user. The sending of transactions is still abysmal and clunky for the average buyer/user. This is far and away the reason GRIN is losing attention.
The GRIN site itself needs a Wallet section, where GRIN devs sign off on the top 3 wallets based on security/usability/etc. Users/buyers have no idea where to go, and the current Wallet ecosystem is utterly behind BEAM. Go download the BEAM Wallet if you haven’t, it’s beautiful. If GRIN had this from the get-go, we’d be seeing 2X the amount of buyers and holders as we do today.
I just hope this focus on raw protocol development versus any semblance of usability pays off in the long run.
The simple fact that BEAM is more centralized allows for more direct marketing, discussions with exchanges, and having an executive team and points of contact. This isn’t a strength necessarily, it’s just a fact that gets things done more quickly. Having an executive team to hold accountable could also be an eventual pitfall for the project, so I am not too concerned with this one.
I’m not sure what the answer here is for GRIN. I know the council has had direct discussions with exchanges when needed, but I know no one wants to be that ‘point of contact’ at all times. Shuffling this duty around may help.
Faster development, more catalysts, more clear roadmap. They have done a better job laying out their ~6-12-18 month plans for development. Again, “faster” is not necessarily a good thing in the long term if they rush protocol development and are not laser-focused on security and scalability. Another reason they can turn development over quicker is their centralized governance. Executives can simply sign off on the roadmap, whereas GRIN has a slower, more conservative consensus.
A more visual, defined roadmap would help outside of Github.
The outcome I am hoping for is that BEAM helps raise awareness for MimbleWimble and paves the way for exchanges and the crypto community better understanding it. BEAM can be the educator for MW, but GRIN needs to eventually come in as the BEST option for MW with cypherpunk roots. From there, GRIN will continue becoming battle-tested and superior on the security and protocol layer front. By the time GRIN ‘catches up’ on usability, MW will be more well-known and integrated, but GRIN should have far better privacy, scalability, and antifragility by then.
BEAM lost already. Surely, Satoshi Nakamoto did not enlighten us 10 years ago with an alernative to Central-Bank issued currency, just for us to end up at Corporate-Startup-registered-in-Malta conceived crypto-currency. BEAM, while novel, is certainly not the world’s way forward to economic soverignty.
Agree with the wallet part, and how confusing sending Grin can get to the “average” user. I believe we have people working on that right now. Let’s just wait till there’s a lot more money to do a lot more things and then we can make our project look more sexy. It’s a “diamond in the rough”, currently to the market.
I knew I’d be better off holding Beam and using it’s profits to pay for Grin in the future. Going into Grin first always seemed like a trap with the emission schedule. Beam’s higher inflation than Grin is only for the first year due to the halving.
My whole goal when designing the Grin++ UI was to appeal to the average user, but it sounds like I have failed to achieve that goal. Suggestions are more than welcome for how I can make this experience better. Thanks
As they say above your head you won’t jump much better) In general, you can turn not to one simple person, but to several, and based on their statements, draw conclusions
Sorry for my english
It’s a good start, I did not mean to make it sound like it’s not a big step in the right direction.
Check out BEAM’s wallet as a start, I think they’ve done a good job appealing to the current crypto community. But much of this is also in the protocol design (e.g. interactive TX) that makes UX/UI much harder than other coins, with a steeper learning curve. I wonder if there are ways to better abstract the current experience into something easier.
I have, but I’m UX-challenged, and don’t know how to learn from another UI without just directly copying it . If you have specifics on what you think Grin++ is lacking compared to Beam, I’m all ears.
The big UX advantage they have over us is they only support 1 transaction method (SBBS), whereas we support file, http(s), keybase, grinbox, etc. There are initiatives to simplify this[1], but I’m interested to hear ways I can improve further.
The reason why beam is wining is serious logo.
Don’t get me wrong, but in marketing there is a law: You Are Judged by Your Appearance. Can you imagine a successful salesman who sell grin to serious investors?
As an average user, I swear my life I like Niffler, Grin ++ and Ironbelly. All these of wallets reflect the dedication to Grin community from the authors.
Hey David, I’m a UX/UI designer (and big believer in mw technology), would love to help you out. He’s right, the Beam UI is much more friendly to an average user. A lot of that comes down to simplification like you pointed out already.
