When people search for “Beam crypto” they usually mean BEAM, the token of the Beam network, a blockchain that the gaming DAO Merit Circle launched in 2023 on Avalanche technology. There is also an older, unrelated privacy coin with the same ticker, and mixing the two up is an easy way to lose money. This article explains where the gaming BEAM came from, what the token does, how it differs from the other BEAM, and what the project looks like today.
Risk note: BEAM is a volatile cryptocurrency and can lose most or all of its value. This is background reading, not financial advice or a recommendation to buy.
Beam at a glance
| Origin | Merit Circle, a gaming DAO launched in September 2021 |
| Network | Beam, a sovereign chain built with the Avalanche tech stack (launched as an Avalanche subnet) |
| Token | BEAM, which replaced the MC token at 100 BEAM for every MC |
| Exchange ticker | BEAM on some platforms, BEAMX on others such as Binance and Crypto.com |
| Ethereum contract | 0x62D0A8458eD7719FDAF978fe5929C6D342B0bFcE (ERC-20, 18 decimals) |
The contract address and token details come from Beam’s own documentation. Always copy an address from the official docs, never from a chat message or a search ad.
From Axie scholarships to a gaming chain
Merit Circle started in the play-to-earn boom of 2021. Its first business was lending Axie Infinity teams to players who could not afford them and sharing the rewards, the so-called scholarship model. According to Gemini’s profile of Merit Circle, the DAO launched in September 2021 and had more than 2,721 scholars by January 2022. Its MC token had a total supply of one billion.
When play-to-earn rewards collapsed in 2022, that model stopped making sense. If you want the background on why, our explainer on GameFi covers the boom and bust, and our Axie marketplace guide shows how that economy works today.
Merit Circle moved from playing games to building infrastructure for them. Development of Beam began in April 2023, and BlockchainGamer.biz reported that the network opened to everyone in November 2023, with 16 games in its ecosystem at that point, including Age of Battles, Domi and Goons of Balatroon. The pitch to studios was simple: a chain dedicated to games, so a busy title would not have to compete for block space with DeFi traders.
The MC to BEAM migration
Once the network was called Beam, keeping a token called MC no longer fit. Two governance votes, MIP-28 and MIP-29, approved swapping MC for a new BEAM token at a ratio of 1 MC to 100 BEAM. Holders kept the same share of the project; only the unit changed.
Exchanges handled the swap for customers. Crypto.com suspended MC trading on 7 November 2023 and reopened trading under the ticker BEAMX on 16 November. Other platforms did it later: Uphold converted balances on 9 April 2024. If you still hold MC in a self-custody wallet, check the official Merit Circle migration page before doing anything, and be suspicious of anyone who contacts you offering to “help” with it.
What the BEAM token does
Beam’s documentation lists four uses for the token.
- It pays for gas. Every transaction on the Beam network needs a little BEAM, much as ETH pays for transactions on Ethereum.
- It will secure the network. After an upgrade the docs call Horizon, validators will need to stake BEAM to propose and confirm blocks under proof of stake.
- It gives holders a vote on some protocol settings through BEAM governance.
- Some games and apps on the network accept it as payment.
KuCoin’s overview adds that a portion of transaction fees is burned, removing those tokens from circulation. When we visited Beam’s page on token distribution on 1 October 2026, it said the emissions plan had changed over time because of burns and new lock-ups, and that more information about the emissions schedule was still to come. In other words, there is no fixed, published supply schedule to lean on, which is worth knowing before you build any valuation story around scarcity.
Gaming BEAM vs the privacy coin BEAM
This is the part that trips people up. Long before Merit Circle’s token, there was Beam, a privacy coin built on the Mimblewimble protocol. The two projects have nothing in common except the name.
| Gaming BEAM (Merit Circle) | Privacy BEAM (Mimblewimble) | |
|---|---|---|
| Purpose | Gas and staking token for the Beam network | Private payments |
| Technology | ERC-20 on Ethereum plus native coin on Beam | Its own proof-of-work chain (Equihash) |
| Supply | Set by the MC swap, reduced by burns | About 263 million maximum |
Details on the privacy coin come from CoinGecko’s introduction to Beam. On price sites the gaming token usually has its own page under the name “onbeam” (CoinMarketCap’s URL is /currencies/onbeam/), which is a quick way to tell them apart.
Before you buy or withdraw, check three things: the ticker on that particular exchange, the network the withdrawal goes over, and the contract address if it is an Ethereum transfer. Send gaming BEAM to a privacy-coin address, or the other way round, and the funds are almost certainly gone.
A practical habit helps here. Send a small test amount first, wait until it arrives, and only then move the rest. It costs one extra fee and saves you from the most expensive mistake people make with this token. The same applies when you move BEAM between Ethereum and the Beam network itself: the withdrawal screen on most exchanges lets you pick the network, and the receiving wallet has to support the one you choose.
Is Beam still a gaming project?
Partly. When we visited onbeam.com on 1 October 2026, the homepage described Beam as an innovation lab working across artificial intelligence, trading and blockchain, with six divisions of which gaming is one. The projects it named were mostly outside games, from a trading app to a stablecoin protocol, alongside one mobile racing game, TrialXtreme. The same page claimed around 250,000 BEAM holders.
That shift matters if you came to BEAM as a “gaming token”. The token’s value now depends on a broader set of bets than the games on its chain. Some readers will see that as diversification; others will see a project that has moved away from the thing they wanted exposure to. We compared it with the other big gaming tokens in our page on the best gaming crypto coins, and the difference stands out: most of the others are still tied to specific games or a single gaming platform.
Who BEAM suits, and who should skip it
If you play one of the games on the Beam network, you will need a small amount of BEAM for fees, and buying just that is reasonable.
If you are looking for a pure bet on blockchain gaming, BEAM is no longer a clean fit given how much of the project now sits in AI and trading. And if you are new to crypto, the ticker confusion alone is a good reason to start with something simpler.
Should you decide to buy, use a large, regulated exchange, confirm which BEAM it lists, and move only what you can afford to lose. Our comparison of the best exchanges for gaming tokens is a good place to start.