Beam is a blockchain network purpose-built for gaming, launched in 2023 by Merit Circle — one of the largest blockchain gaming DAOs — as a sovereign gaming chain built on Avalanche’s subnet architecture. Beam provides game developers with a dedicated, high-performance blockchain environment separate from general-purpose chains, enabling games to process millions of micro-transactions without congesting shared network resources. The Beam ecosystem is deeply integrated with the gaming infrastructure Merit Circle built: Sphere (NFT marketplace), Beam Companion (wallet app), and the Merit Circle DAO treasury which funds game development grants and investments. BEAM is the native gas and governance token. Beam uses Avalanche Subnets’ consensus for fast finality — transactions confirm in under 2 seconds with near-zero fees. The Merit Circle DAO rebranded to Beam in 2023, consolidating its gaming and DeFi investments under the Beam identity. The DAO treasury holds stakes in over 100 blockchain gaming projects, making it one of the best-diversified blockchain gaming investment vehicles. BEAM token holders can stake to earn a share of Beam network revenues. The network supports EVM smart contracts, so any Ethereum gaming project can deploy to Beam without code changes. Key games using Beam include Off The Grid, Apeiron, and Big Time.
Example: A battle royale game processes 500,000 in-game item transactions daily. On Beam’s dedicated subnet, the game gets guaranteed throughput with no congestion risk, sub-cent fees per transaction, and a gaming-specific NFT marketplace (Sphere) already integrated. Players trade freely; the developer focuses on gameplay rather than blockchain infrastructure.
Learn more: Beam Network
