Merit Circle no longer runs under that name. In 2023 its DAO voted to replace the MC token with BEAM at 1 MC to 100 BEAM, and the swap opened on 26 October 2023. The old meritcircle.io domain now redirects to onbeam.com. The newest update is the Beam Foundation's Q3 2026 treasury report, published on 23 October 2026. It valued the treasury at $160,041,171 as of 30 September 2026, up 7.72% from $148,570,485 on 30 June 2026. That total does not count the Foundation's own BEAM tokens.
The latest: Q3 2026 treasury report (23 October 2026)
The Beam Foundation's newsletter #62 gives these figures, all as of 30 September 2026:
- Total treasury value: $160,041,171, up from $148,570,485 on 30 June 2026 (+7.72%). The figure excludes BEAM tokens.
- BEAM held by the treasury: 12,425,313,673 BEAM across Ethereum, Beam Network, BNB Smart Chain and Avalanche, valued at $24.56 million.
- Breakdown (treasury dashboard): venture investments $102,615,506; cash $36,009,249; liquid crypto assets $21,409,853; NFTs $6,562.
- Market backdrop the report cites for the quarter: Bitcoin +42%, ETH +71%, CCI30 index +50%.
- Reporting change: written treasury reports will now come out once a year, with the next one covering the full year 2026. The dashboard will still update every quarter.
The dashboard says the Foundation has not independently verified its figures, and that the assets it holds "are not controlled by the BEAM tokenholders."
From MC to BEAM: how the migration worked
The votes
- MIP-28, "Migrating MC token to BEAM token": the vote closed on 24 September 2023 with about 99.52% in favour (DeFiLlama governance tracker).
- MIP-29, "Execution of migration of MC token to BEAM token": this covered deploying the migration contract and a USDC 10,000 audit budget from the treasury. It passed in mid-October 2023 with about 98.28% in favour.
- MIP-30: an extension proposal. DeFiLlama lists it as failed, with about 77% against.
- MIP-31: a proposal to complete the transition to BEAM. It passed in September 2024 with about 94.55% in favour.
These vote shares come from DeFiLlama's aggregation. The original Merit Circle governance forum (gov.meritcircle.io) no longer resolves, so we could not check the totals against the forum posts.
The mechanics
- Ratio: 1 MC = 100 BEAM.
- No new supply: BEAM was created only when MC was converted, so the swap did not dilute holders' relative share. MIP-29 described it as no actual increase in relative supply.
- Start and window: the migration opened on 26 October 2023 with a 12-month window, which put the deadline at 26 October 2024.
- Progress: Merit Circle's December 2023 migration update reported 55,158,623,122 BEAM created and 87.6% of MC migrated.
- On-chain today: at its creation, the MC contract on Ethereum had an initial supply of 1,000,000,000 MC. On 25 October 2026 Etherscan shows a total supply of about 11.9 million MC. That suggests about 98.8% of the original MC has been converted and removed. If you still hold MC, check Beam's official channels for current options. We could not verify whether any route is still open after the 2024 deadline.
What BEAM is used for now
Beam's documentation describes BEAM as an ERC-20 token (Ethereum contract 0x62D0A8458eD7719FDAF978fe5929C6D342B0bFcE, 18 decimals). It has four stated uses:
- Gas: BEAM pays transaction fees on the Beam Network. Beam describes the network as a sovereign, EVM-compatible blockchain built on the Avalanche tech stack.
- Security: under the Horizon upgrade, the network moves to proof-of-stake. Users can run or delegate to validators, and running a Beam Node requires an ERC-721 node token. The docs give no Horizon dates.
- Governance: BEAM holders vote on proposals. Under Beam's constitution, holders do not manage the Foundation. They can give on-chain feedback and vetoes on certain Foundation decisions, and they can seek enforcement through an "Emergency Supervisor" if an "Adverse Event" occurs.
- Payments: BEAM can be used as a means of payment within the ecosystem.
Supply and burns
Burned BEAM is sent to burn contracts. That lowers both circulating supply and maximum total supply. Burns can come from protocol fees or from voluntary burns.
The numbers depend on where you look:
- Maximum possible supply: 1 billion MC × 100 = 100 billion BEAM, if every MC had migrated.
- token.onbeam.com: shows "51.3B" out of "58.5B" and says about 38% of supply has been burned. The page does not label which figure is circulating and which is total.
- Etherscan (25 October 2026): shows a total supply of 57,970,184,687 BEAM on the Ethereum contract, held by 48,098 addresses.
The project's figures and the on-chain figures do not match exactly. Use them as rough numbers.
How much BEAM did your MC convert to?
Enter an amount of MC to see the BEAM it equals at the migration ratio of 1 MC to 100 BEAM.
| Amount of MC | Equivalent amount at 1 MC = 100 BEAM |
|---|---|
| 1,000 MC | 100,000 BEAM |
| 1 MC | 100 BEAM |
| 250.5 MC | 25,050 BEAM |
| 1,000,000,000 MC | 100,000,000,000 BEAM |
- The MC amount is your own input, not a figure from any source.
- The fixed ratio of 1 MC to 100 BEAM is the one set for the migration that opened on 26 October 2023. The last row shows the 100 billion BEAM maximum if every MC had migrated.
This only multiplies your amount by the swap ratio. It does not show whether MC can still be migrated after the 26 October 2024 deadline, and it does not give a price, value or tax result for any BEAM.
Who runs it
The Beam Foundation is a memberless non-profit foundation in the Cayman Islands. Its stated job is to support Beam's decentralisation, adoption and security, and it cannot pay dividends.
Beam's website now calls Beam an "innovation lab" working across AI, trading and blockchain. It lists six divisions: Finance, Trading, RWA, Ventures, Gaming and AI. Projects it names include:
- Beam Ventures: a fund in Abu Dhabi Global Market.
- Aethir: a GPU cloud network, which the site calls one of the treasury's largest positions.
- Tactical Compute: a $40 million joint venture with Aethir and USDai.
- Sophon: a blockchain Beam incubated before it became independent.
- A consumer trading app that the team incubated.
Its May 2026 newsletter was mostly about that trading app. Gaming now sits alongside these other divisions instead of being the whole project.
Background: what Merit Circle was
Merit Circle started in 2021 as a play-to-earn gaming DAO that grew out of the Axie 420 scholarship programme. It bought in-game NFTs, at first for Axie Infinity, and lent them to players who could not afford them, sharing the in-game earnings. Over time it became a broader Web3 gaming investor. By July 2023 it was building Beam, which its newsletter called a gaming chain made "in collaboration with Avalanche." The MC-to-BEAM vote followed that September.
Risks to keep in mind
- Self-reported figures: treasury values come from the Foundation itself and are not independently verified.
- Changing direction: the project has moved away from its gaming focus, and its token documentation still says details of the emissions schedule are "to come."
- Old MC tokens: anyone holding unmigrated MC should rely only on Beam's official channels.
This is information only, not investment advice.
Limitations: the governance vote figures come from an aggregator, because the original forum is offline. The current treasury figures rest on a single source, the Beam Foundation.
