Berachain is undoubtedly the only public chain that has attracted widespread attention before the mainnet in 2024. The strong financing background, cooperation with multiple top projects, and attractive airdrop expectations have rekindled the enthusiasm of DeFi enthusiasts. In general, Berachain has very noteworthy aspects in terms of project background, innovation, and data performance. Through the analysis of these dimensions, we will reveal Berachains advantages in technical architecture, community building, market performance, and its development potential in the future Layer 1 track.
1. Project Introduction
Berachain is a Layer 1 blockchain project built on Cosmos SDK and compatible with Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). It aims to solve the liquidity dilemma in the DeFi (decentralized finance) field through its unique Proof of Liquidity (PoL) consensus mechanism. The PoL mechanism ensures the security and vitality of the network by encouraging users to provide liquidity to the network, which is different from the traditional PoS (Proof of Stake) mechanism because it takes liquidity as the core of network security and efficiency.
PoL (Proof of Liquidity) Mechanism:
Liquidity Staking: Berachain requires validators to stake liquidity rather than simply holding tokens. This mechanism promotes the health and sustainability of the network by rewarding users who provide liquidity to the network.
Three token systems:
BERA: As the networks gas token, it is used to pay transaction fees and support the basic operations of the network.
HONEY: Berachain’s stablecoin, designed to provide a stable store of value and medium of exchange, similar to stablecoins in other ecosystems.
BGT (Berachain Governance Token): used for governance, non-transferable, ensuring that decision-making power belongs to long-term holders who truly care about the development of the network.
Team Background:
Berachain was founded by a group of DeFi enthusiasts who met in the Olympus DAO community and have rich backgrounds in the DeFi field. They initially entered the market through the NFT project Bong Bears. Berachain completed a $42 million Series A financing in April 2023, with investors including Polychain Capital, OKX Ventures, Hack VC and other first-class crypto investment institutions, and completed a $100 million Series B financing in April 2024. This not only proves the markets recognition of Berachains innovative mechanism, but also provides strong financial support for the subsequent development of the project.
2. Data display
Berachains ecosystem is developing very rapidly. Before the mainnet is launched, more than 270 projects have pledged to participate, mainly focusing on consumer applications. Its second testnet (v2 Bartio) was launched in June 2024. During the B2 testnet phase, the number of addresses showed exponential growth after September. In less than a month, it rose from 6.4 million addresses to 33.3 million, and continued to grow from October to December. The number of independent addresses has reached 240 million, and the number of daily active addresses peaked in December, reaching 7 million at its peak.
Data: https://80084.testnet.routescan.io/
Since the opening of pre-deposits, Berastone vault has deposited 87,307 ETH from 100,357 unique addresses, with a TVL of US$273 million.
Data: https://dune.com/rudexxx/berachain-vault-berastone
The total TVL of the pre-deposit pool of Pre Boyco in cooperation with Ethena, Etherfi, Lombard, and Stakestone reached 1.064 billion US dollars. Data: https://dune.com/lindyhan/berachain-pre-boyco-deposits
The number of unique holders of ecological NFT THJ is 6,998, more than 44,000 have been minted, and $6.927 million has been raised. The transaction volume has reached 8,827 ETH. Data: https://dune.com/thj/thehoneyjar
III. Key Milestones
2021.8 Bong Bears NFT minting and issuance
2021.11 Berachain was mentioned for the first time
2022.3 Olympus DAO OIP-87s proposal on Berachains seed round financing was approved. Berachain will receive 0.5 M in financing from Olympus at a valuation of 50 M.
2023.4 Berachain completes $42 million Series A financing, with a valuation of $420 million, led by Polychain
2024.1 Berachain testnet launched
2024.2 LayerZero announces support for Berachain
2024.3 Tabi Chain announced that it will deploy NFT market, Launchpad and event platform on Berachain
2024.4 Berachain Berachain completed $100 million Series B financing, with a valuation of $1.5 billion, led by Framework Ventures
2024.6 Launch the second public testnet (v2 Bartio)
2024.7 The first joint testnet of the Chain Abstraction Alliance jointly launched by Berachain and Modular Chain Abstraction L1 Particle Network is launched
2024.9 Launch RFB incentive plan and cooperate with multiple liquidity deposit projects such as Stakestone
2024.10 Magic Eden announces support for Berachain
2025 Q1 TGE
4. Cooperation Projects
In addition to the cooperation projects introduced in the above key development nodes, Berachain will also launch the Request For Broposal (RFB) incentive program in September 2024 after the launch of the V2 testnet this year to provide liquidity and other support for early teams. RFB consists of three parts: Boyco, Request for Application and Request for Community.
Boyco is a liquidity market that provides liquidity support for the Berachain mainnet to ensure that there is enough liquidity on the chain for ecological DApps to use. Users can make a pre-deposit through the Boyco vault to obtain corresponding tokens and rewards when the mainnet is launched.
Boyco has currently cooperated with multiple DeFi protocols to form external deposit pools, with a total TVL of 1.6 billion US dollars: the cooperation projects include Bedrock, Cian, Dinero, Ethena+Concrete, Etherfi, Lombard, Solv, Stakestone, Usual, VaultCraft, and ListaDAO. Here are some of the main partners:
Stakestone
StakeStone, a full-chain liquidity asset protocol, announced a strategic partnership with Berachain in August last year, and STONE tokens were fully deployed on the Berachain bArtio testnet. Users will be able to use StakeStones liquidity assets STONE, ssBTC, and STONEBTC to participate in the Berachain ecosystem and earn income. At the same time, the income product issuance platform StakeStone Vault was launched. The first phase was launched in cooperation with RWAFi chain Plume to launch StakeStone x Plume pre-deposit Vault, using STONE and SBTC to participate.
In December, it launched the second phase of Vault product Berachain Vault with StakeStone, which aims to provide exclusive income services for one-stop Berachain pre-deposit (Boyco pre-deposit activity) and subsequent Berachain PoL (Proof of Liquidity) liquidity mining. At the same time, through its vault LP certificate beraSTONE/beraSBTC, more blue-chip DeFi application opportunities will be unlocked, including trading, lending, and leveraged income operations. Berachain Vault participants will receive liquidity rewards including STO governance tokens up to 1.5% of the total supply, BERA token rewards given by Berachain pre-mining, PoL mining income after the Berachain mainnet is launched, and Berachain ecological project rewards including but not limited to Kodiak and Dolomite token rewards. StakeStone Berachain Vault was jointly released by Pendle, Royco, Morpho, Dolomite, Kodiak, Native and other partners as well as 20+ Berachain ecological projects/communities. Within 24 hours of its launch, deposits exceeded 111 million US dollars and more than 30,000 addresses participated. Subsequently, beraSTONE has surpassed stETH to become the largest interest-bearing Ethereum asset, and the beraSTONE/ETH liquidity pool on Uniswap V3 has also become the largest liquidity pool on Uniswap V3.
Lombard
Lombard is a project focused on Bitcoin DeFi, providing an opportunity to collaborate with Berachain. Lombards Bitcoin Bera Vault has attracted a large amount of funds in a short period of time, showing its strong appeal in the market. By depositing LBTC or wBTC in Lombards Vault, users can simultaneously receive rewards from multiple protocols, including Berachain, Lombard, Babylon, etc.
Ethena
Ethena Labs tweeted in December last year that it has launched Ethena Berachain pre-deposit Vaults, which supports USDe, sUSDe, USDC and USDT deposits. In addition, Concrete launched 2 Ethena pre-deposit Vaults for Berachain to start the deposit program, allowing users to retain USD exposure while receiving Berachain rewards and participating in its ecosystem. After the Berachain mainnet is launched, the pre-deposit Vaults will deploy liquidity in the whitelist protocol in the Berachain ecosystem. USDe and sUSDe deposits will be eligible for Ethena rewards, Concrete points, BERA and native ecosystem rewards.
Etherfi
Ethereum re-staking protocol ether.fi announced the launch of Berachain incentive pre-deposit vault on January 1 this year, supporting deposits of weETH, WETH, stETH, eBTC, wBTC, cbBTC and LBTC. After the Berachain mainnet is launched, deposits will remain locked for 90 days.
Usual
Usual officially announced on January 5 that the Boyco pre-deposited Usual Bera Vault TVL jointly launched by Usual and Berachain has exceeded 15 million US dollars in 24 hours. Users can earn 37% annualized rate of return (APY) and incentives from Berachain, Kodiak, Dolomite and Veda. Notes include:
• Vault deposits earn USUAL rewards at the displayed Annual Percentage Yield (APY), which can only be claimed on the Vault page.
•Deposits can be made using USD 0, USD 0++, USDC or DAI.
•Withdrawals are made in USD 0++.
•Positions are locked for 1-3 months after mainnet launch.
Bedrock
Bedrock, a multi-asset liquidity re-pledge protocol, launched the uniBTC Berachain Vault on January 6, supporting a cross-chain reward mechanism, aiming to bridge the Ethereum and Berachain ecosystems. Through the Vault, users can achieve automated income, cross-chain asset management, and participate in Berachains Boyco pre-deposit activities. The Vault adopts a four-tier income structure, including Berachain native rewards, Bera DeFi returns, CIAN reward layer and CIAN points. Users can receive multiple rewards including ETH mainnet rewards, Berachain rewards, Pendle, EQB and Corn during the pre-deposit stage. In addition, there is a 30% referral bonus. To participate in the Vault, users need to visit the Bedrock dApp, select and deposit supported assets (such as uniBTC, WBTC, cbBTC or FBTC), and obtain a pre-deposit certificate.
5. Ecological Projects
Berachain Exchange (BEX)
BEX is the native decentralized exchange (DEX) of the Berachain ecosystem, providing an efficient trading experience through its unique liquidity pool mechanism. What is special about BEX is that it is closely integrated with the PoL mechanism, which enhances the overall liquidity of the network by rewarding liquidity providers. It is also closely integrated with Berachains other DeFi protocols (such as BEND and BERPS) to form a complete decentralized financial ecosystem.
BEX is designed to simplify the trading process and enable users to easily participate in DeFi activities. It uses Berachains unique Proof-of-Liquidity (PoL) consensus mechanism, through which BEX can effectively separate gas tokens and governance tokens, thereby improving user experience.
In general, as a core component of Berachain, BEX is committed to providing users with a secure, efficient and easy-to-use decentralized trading platform to promote the development of the entire DeFi ecosystem.
The Honey Jar (THJ)
The Honey Jar (THJ) is a community project based on Berachain, acting as a coordinator between users, bApps, and the Berachain protocol. THJ is not only the education and community center of Berachain, but also responsible for project incubation and matchmaking, committed to promoting the development of the ecosystem. THJs core functions include creating Honeycomb NFTs, providing liquidity, and reward mechanisms.
In THJs ecosystem, users can earn BGT rewards by participating in liquidity provision and stake these rewards to obtain more rewards and bribes. THJ emphasizes deep integration with partners, goes beyond simple brand cooperation, and is committed to exploring new possibilities and innovative combinations.
Overall, The Honey Jar is a versatile ecosystem that aims to provide users with rich experiences and rewards through innovation and collaboration.
Beradrome
Beradrome focuses on Restaking, further optimizing the networks resource utilization efficiency by allowing users to use their liquidity for more purposes (such as staking and mining). Beradrome started NFT activities during the testnet, promising to airdrop BGT after the mainnet is launched to incentivize early participants.
Additionally, Beradrome is also working with other protocols such as Beramonium, which is developing some kind of game and promised to provide a $125,000 bribe on Beradrome to attract liquidity. This shows that Beradrome is not just a liquidity platform, but is actively working with other projects to promote the development of the ecosystem.
In general, Beradrome is a protocol designed to enhance user participation through liquidity incentives and governance mechanisms, and has its own characteristics in functions and applications.
Sudoswap
As an NFT liquidity market, Sudoswap plans to be deployed on Berachain to provide NFT liquidity solutions. This is not just a simple NFT trading platform, but also improves the diversity and interactivity of the Berachain ecosystem through NFT bridging.
Infrared Finance
Infrared Finance is a protocol focused on Liquid Staking, aiming to provide Berachain users with a one-click access to Proof of Liquidity (PoL) solutions. As the first and only dedicated liquidity staking tool on Berachain, Infrared Finance optimizes liquidity staking rewards, ecosystem participation, and Berachains three-generation token model ($BERA, $BGT, $HONEY), while simplifying the user experience and improving capital efficiency.
Infrared Finance has currently launched two products: $iBGT and $iBERA, through which users can deposit liquidity, earn $iBGT, stake $iBGT, etc. on the Berachain testnet. The goal of the protocol is to maximize value capture and provide users with an easy-to-use liquidity staking solution.
Infrared Finance also raised $2.5 million in seed funding, including a strategic investment from Binance Labs. The protocol has partnered with Solv Protocol to further advance infrastructure construction around Berachain’s liquidity proof mechanism.
As the Berachain mainnet approaches, the $iBGT ecosystem is growing and new use cases are being launched every day. The launch of Infrared Finance is seen as a major milestone in DeFi innovation, and users are encouraged to participate in liquidity provision and other related activities to earn $iBGT on the testnet.
Overall, Infrared Finance is committed to driving the development of the Berachain ecosystem through its innovative liquidity staking solutions and providing users with more efficient ways to utilize capital.
KodiakFi
KodiakFi mainly provides BGT mining pool services, aiming to enable users to participate in the governance and benefits of Berachain in a more decentralized way through mining pools. Through close cooperation with projects such as Infrared Finance and Beradrome, KodiakFi provides users with a richer ecological experience. In addition, KodiakFi has also launched the Automated Liquidity Management (ALM) Island with multiple partners such as Mozaic and Gamma Strategies, further enhancing liquidity management capabilities.
Ooga Booga
Ooga Booga is a decentralized trading aggregator running on Berachain, which improves trading efficiency by scanning more than six exchanges to provide the cheapest cryptocurrency exchange rate. According to its website data, the number of independent wallets that have interacted has exceeded 460,000, and the total transaction volume has exceeded US$2.5 billion.
Future Outlook
With its innovative PoL mechanism and diverse ecosystem projects, Berachain demonstrates how to solve long-standing problems in the blockchain field through technological innovation. With the launch of the mainnet and the addition of more projects, Berachain is expected to become not only an efficient trading platform, but also an important and unique presence in the DeFi ecosystem. Future development will depend on its continued incentives for community participation, further optimization of technology, and interactive integration with other ecosystems.
Although Berachain shows great potential, the following risks should be noted:
Technical risks: The stability and security of the new PoL mechanism and the three-token model still need time to verify.
Ecosystem growth risk: Whether the mainnet can continue to attract enough protocols and users determines the long-term development of the chain.
Market competition risk: Compared with other public chains, how to establish differentiation and competitive advantages remains a challenge.
