# Beam (BEAM): D-Score 46/100 — Moderately Decentralized

**BlockIndex D-Score: 46/100 (Moderately Decentralized).** Beam (BEAM) is a Layer 1 cryptocurrency using PoW consensus. Beam: Privacy-first Mimblewimble Layer-1 enabling confidential smart contracts, assets, and private DeFi with BeamVM, bridges and developer tools.

_Source: https://blockindex.ai/coin/beam · Data by BlockIndex.AI · Updated 2026-06-19_

## D-Score breakdown (0-100, higher means more decentralized)
| Component | Score |
| --- | --- |
| Overall D-Score | 46 |
| Node distribution | 12 |
| Initial distribution | 0 |
| Governance | 16 |
| Age and history | 13 |
| Autonomy | 5 |

## Key facts
- Layer: Layer 1
- Consensus: PoW (Other)
- Launch: Fair Launch (2019)
- Founder: Alexander Zaidelson; Alex Romanov; Aleksei Liutykh; Vadym Ovcharenko; Andy Bromberg; Ian Wisbey; Miranda Cole; Marco Van Den Heuvel; Guy Corem; Bo Dong; Jose Dias; Natallia Catarina
- VC funded: Yes
- Max supply: 58,470,184,687
- Circulating: 51,300,184,687 (87.7%)

## Market data (as of 2026-06-19)
- Price: $0
- Market cap: $73.94M
- 24h volume: $3.13M
- 24h change: -4.01% · 7d change: +0.50%

## About
Beam is a privacy-first Layer-1 blockchain built on the Mimblewimble architecture with a strong emphasis on confidential transactions, confidential assets, and private DeFi primitives. Launched in January 2019 as a fair-launch Proof-of-Work network, Beam combines the compact-chain design of Mimblewimble with advanced privacy protocols such as Lelantus to provide users with meaningful transaction confidentiality while also enabling more expressive on-chain constructs through the Beam Virtual Machine (BVM). The project’s founding team brought together experience in cryptography and distributed systems, and the initial roadmap prioritized privacy-by-default, efficient node synchronization and a pragmatic path to broader DeFi integration through wrapped representations and bridges. Over time Beam has evolved from a pure privacy coin into a broader platform for confidential assets, a confidential AMM/DEX, private stablecoins and NFTs, and developer-facing SDKs aimed at games and application builders.

Technically, Beam distinguishes itself by integrating Mimblewimble transaction aggregation with Lelantus-style anonymity sets, while layering a WASM-executing Beam Virtual Machine for confidential smart contracts (called Shaders). The network leverages BeamHash family PoW algorithms (BeamHash III noted in roadmaps) and a UTXO-like model consistent with Mimblewimble designs. Development has followed a cadence of staged hard-forks that introduced BeamHash upgrades, Lelantus-MW prototypes, the BVM, IPFS wallet integrations, and high-frequency transaction improvements (HFTX). Beam also supports wrapped representations (WBEAM) and cross-chain bridges to enable composability with Ethereum and other ecosystems without sacrificing the confidentiality properties of native transactions where possible.

From an application and ecosystem perspective Beam targets privacy-preserving financial primitives and developer-friendly tooling for games and confidential dApps. Use cases include private peer-to-peer payments, issuance of confidential assets that hide metadata while representing fungible/non-fungible property, confidential AMMs for private trading, and privacy-aware gaming economies that require confidentiality for asset ownership and transfers. Interoperability efforts — including Wraps (WBEAM) and bridges to Ethereum and layer-2 networks — seek to bring additional liquidity and composability while preserving native privacy for on-chain flows that execute on Beam. The roadmap and community initiatives (e.g., Beam Warp L2, EVM support via Hard Fork 8.0, Bridge SDKs) emphasize pragmatic steps toward wider DeFi and developer adoption while retaining privacy guarantees.

Tokenomics for BEAM are deterministic and capped: the protocol documents a maximum supply of 262,800,000 BEAM with a defined emission schedule and halving mechanics. Historically, 20% of block emissions were allocated to the Beam Treasury for the first five years (through Jan 3, 2024); that temporary allocation has ended and the ongoing dev-fund percentage is documented as 0% in canonical materials. Beam launched fairly with no premine or ICO. The project has also introduced treasury mechanisms, buyback-and-burn examples and community-directed spending, and is actively transitioning governance toward an on-chain BeamX DAO model to increase community control of treasury and upgrades.

Governance and community organization are in transition: Beam documents a path toward BeamX DAO with on-chain voting and BEAMX-related participation mechanisms, and the project publishes roadmap details and upgrade proposals on its forum. While a formal corporate registration or single controlling company is not explicit in the provided material, the project maintains an active open-source GitHub and community forum where upgrade proposals, hard-fork discussions and technical specifications are debated. Beam’s public-facing materials and timelines indicate steady engineering work and ecosystem expansions (confidential DEX, wrapped token support, hardware wallet compatibility, SDKs), positioning Beam as a specialized L1 privacy platform aimed at private DeFi and gaming use cases.

## Links
- Website: https://beam.mw/
- Whitepaper: N/A
- GitHub: https://github.com/BeamMW

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About the D-Score: BlockIndex.AI rates decentralization from 0 to 100 across node distribution, initial distribution, governance, age and history, and autonomy. Methodology: https://blockindex.ai/dscore