Moonbeam Unique Features
Ethereum Compatibility
Moonbeam uses a Proof of Stake-based consensus mechanism, which means that Proof of Work concepts, such as difficulty, uncles, hashrate, etc., generally don’t have meaning within Moonbeam. For APIs that return values related to Ethereum’s Proof of Work, we return default values. Existing Ethereum contracts that rely on Proof of Work internals (e.g., mining pool contracts) will almost certainly not work as expected on Moonbeam.
Moonbeam includes an extensive set of on-chain governance features based on Substrate functionality. These onchain governance modules include functionality to power upgrades to the blockchain itself based on token weighted voting.
Unified Accounts
Moonbeam’s focus is to create a fully Ethereum-compatible environment on Polkadot with the best user experience possible. This extends beyond the base Ethereum feature set, with additional features such as on-chain governance, staking, and cross-chain integrations.
With Unified Accounts, a user (let’s call him Bob) will only need a single H160 address, with its corresponding private key, to do everything we mentioned above including both EVM and Substrate functions.