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Berachain is one of the most hyped crypto projects of the year that is set to launch its public mainnet on February 6, 2025. The blockchain project, which started as an NFT collection in 2021, is known for its cult-like following and a unique incentive-based economic engine.
Berachain's mainnet will launch on February 6th, 2025. Welcome to Q5.
— Berachain Foundation 🐻⛓ (@berachain) February 4, 2025
In this article, we explain everything you need to know about Berachain and its upcoming public mainnet launch and airdrop.
Key Takeaways
- Berachain originally started as an NFT project called Bong Bears in August 2021.
- The L1 uses a unique economic mechanism called proof-of-liquidity that looks to maximize user retention and liquidity on the network.
- Berachain has a two-token system where $BERA is the gas fee payment token, and $BGT is the governance token.
- The BGT token can only be earned by network validators.
- Berachain has raised significant funding, including $42 million in seed funding and $100 million in a Series B round, highlighting strong investor interest and support.
- Show Full Guide
What Is Berachain?
Berachain is a layer one (L1) blockchain that incentivizes users to provide liquidity to its ecosystem via a unique economic mechanism known as proof-of-liquidity (PoL). The project has three co-founders, who go by the pseudonyms Smokey the Bera, Homme Bera and Dev Bear.
Berachain originally started as a non-fungible token (NFT) project called Bong Bears in August 2021. In 2022, the development team started raising funds to develop an L1 blockchain.
What sets Berachain apart from its L1 rivals is its economic PoL flywheel, in which users, applications, and validators work together to maximize user retention and liquidity on the network. In PoL, validators are rewarded a governance token called BGT whenever they propose a new block.
BGT emissions earned by validators are proportional to the amount of BGT tokens delegated to them by Berachain users. Thus, validators are incentivized to re-distribute their BGT holdings to delegators.
Validators do this by sending their BGT tokens to “reward vaults” set up by decentralized protocols and applications on Berachain. In return, these protocols incentivize validators by offering their own tokens in exchange for directing BGT tokens to their vaults.
The protocol then incentivizes users to provide liquidity by offering BGT and other token rewards in return.
Berachain’s Camila Ramos wrote in a blog post:
“In other ecosystems, the relationship between users, validators, and applications is fragmented at best. At its core, proof of liquidity makes it easier for applications to acquire users and liquidity and provides validators with differentiated revenue streams from collaborating with those protocols.”
Berachain’s Key Features: Innovation in Liquidity, Governance & Compatibility
Here are the key features that set Berachain apart from the competition:
- Proof-of-liquidity: PoL is a unique economic mechanism where users are incentivized to provide liquidity to the Berachain ecosystem.
- Two-token system: Berachain has two tokens. $BERA is the native token used for gas fee payment and staking. $BGT is a governance token that can only be earned by validators.
- EVM-compatible: Berachain is an EVM-compatible chain meaning that it can host the decentralized applications currently existing on Ethereum (ETH) and its layer two (L2) chains.
- BeaconKit: Berachain is built using a modular and customizable consensus layer called BeaconKit.
When Is the Berachain Mainnet Launch Date?
The Berachain mainnet will launch on February 6, 2025. According to the Berachain Foundation, the token generation event (TGE) will also take place on the same day.
User growth and transaction volume have remained strong in the lead-up to the main net launch, with the Berachain Artio test net boasting over 3.74 million active addresses as of February 5, 2025.
The Road to Mainnet: Development & Testnet Insights
These are the key events leading up to the Berachain mainnet:
When Is the Berachain Airdrop?
The Berachain airdrop is set to take place on February 6, 2025, too.
Note that Berachain has a two-token system. Only the BERA token, used for gas fee payments and staking, will be airdropped to community members, the team, investors, and insiders.
The BGT token will not be airdropped as the token can only be earned by network validators.
Airdrops are the farthest thing from a tool for user acquisition – their cost per real user is ridiculous.
This is a false narrative spread by Big Airdrop.
Airdrops are a actually a tool for rewarding and retaining your ride or die supporters.
Everything will be clear soon.
— Smokey The Bera 🐻⛓ (@SmokeyTheBera) February 1, 2025
Berachain Tokenomics: $BERA Utility, Supply & Distribution
$BERA Utility: Gas Fees & Staking
First, let’s recap $BERA’s use cases.
- Gas fee payment: $BERA is the native token of Berachain. Anyone wanting to conduct transactions on the Berachain blockchain will have to pay fees in $BERA tokens.
- Staking:Validators on Berachain are required to lock up $BERA tokens as collateral to become eligible to validate transactions and to create new blocks. Within a special set of validators known as the “active set,” the more $BERA a validator stakes, the more frequently they are chosen to propose blocks. Note that validators receive $BGT token rewards when they propose and create new blocks on Berachain.
$BERA Supply & Distribution
$BERA token has an initial total supply of 500 million tokens. The token is designed to inflate at a rate of about 10% per annum, subject to governance.
Here is how $BERA token’s initial total supply of 500 million tokens was distributed:
| Allocated to | Percentage of initial total supply | Details |
|---|---|---|
| Investors | 34.3% | Berachain’s Seed, Series A and Series B investors, such as Polychain Capital, Hack VC, Brevan Howard Digital, and Framework Ventures. |
| Ecosystem and R&D | 20% | Support for ecosystem development, R&D, growth initiatives, and the operations of the Berachain Foundation. |
| Initial core contributors | 16.8% | Advisors and members of Big Bera Labs and core contributors to the Berachain blockchain. |
| Airdrops | 15.8% | Testnet users, Berachain NFT holders, ecosystem NFT holders, social supporters, ecosystem dApps, community builders, and more. |
| Future community initiatives | 13.1% | Applications, developers, and users through incentive programs and grants. |
What to Expect From the Berachain Mainnet Launch?
The Berachain mainnet launch marks the realization of its vision as an ambitious L1 network. Over the years, Berachain and the Bong Bears NFT collection have built a strong community of supporters known as “Bears.” Now, the project aims to leverage this community to establish itself as a strong rival to prominent L1 chains like Ethereum and Solana (SOL).
According to Berachain Foundation, at the public launch of its mainnet, only “initial major” Berachain decentralized exchange pairs will receive BGT rewards.
A few weeks after the mainnet launch, Berachain will enable PoL for all protocols and decentralized applications on the network. Anyone will be able to propose protocol pools to be eligible for BGT emissions. The proposal will be subjected to community governance and will be deemed eligible once required governance criteria are met.
When it comes to network improvement proposals, BGT holders will be able to initiate proposals “within a few weeks after launch.” However, the Berachain Guardians—a group of technical, economic, and community contributors—will have the power to veto proposals.
The Berachain Foundation stated that a minimum requirement of 10,000 BGT tokens for initiating proposals is expected to be implemented to prevent spamming. It added:
“By initially focusing on a small set of native BeraSwap pools, the network can establish a stable liquidity baseline and gather security insights before opening up to third-party dApps through a structured process. This measured approach not only helps mitigate sudden market disruptions but also offers developers and community members a clear path for proposing new vaults or dApp integrations.”
Expert Analysis & Community Reactions to the Berachain Mainnet Launch
Here’s what community members and early supporters had to say about Berachain ahead of its mainnet launch.
Framework Ventures Lauds “Energetic” Berachain Community
Canada-based crypto investment firm Framework Ventures, which co-led a $100 million Series B funding round in Berachain, said that the project’s community was “one of the most energized + memetic” the company had seen in the crypto space.
Framework Ventures added: “They’ve basically built a blockchain that allows users to directly incentivize certain apps and industries to build on their chain, which is a fascinating model for ecosystem growth that we’ve never seen before. There’s a reason 200+ apps have committed to build on the chain.”
How can @Berachain bridge the gap between its almost cult-like crypto community and the conglomerates + institutions that are starting to finally build on-chain?@SmokeyTheBera & @im_manderson discuss 👇👇👇 pic.twitter.com/aoqCcp1a82
— Framework Ventures (@hiFramework) October 30, 2024
Revelo Intel Highlights Berachain’s Meme Spirit
Meanwhile, crypto research firm Revelo Intel said that Berachain is a chain that “embodies the ‘spirit’ of memecoins the most.”
In a research note, Intel explained:
“It might be easy to dismiss the projects building on Berachain as playful, and perhaps lacking a solid foundational premise. From Bear NFTs to vape-to-earn projects; the Berachain ecosystem is certainly colorful. But there is definitely a fair share of teams iterating upon previous DeFi concepts, and bringing new, interesting ideas to the table.”
Alea Calls Berachain the “Most Anticipated Launch of This Cycle”
California-based crypto research firm Alea said Berachain was “arguably the most anticipated chain launch of this cycle.” The firm added that upcoming L1 launches like MegaETH and Monad will be looking at the Berachain mainnet launch closely.
“The Berachain launch has a lot of eyes on it, and the unique ways in which liquidity bootstrapping is handled before, during, and directly after launch will be a case study of sorts for other chains like MegaETH or Monad.”
Story Protocol Co-founder Dismisses Berachain
However, not all the reactions have been positive. Back in August 2024, Seung Yoon Lee, co-founder of intellectual property-focused (IP) Story Protocol dismissed Berachain as an L1 project with “slight technical tweaks.”
<Don’t Fuck with My IP!>
Last month, we announced our vision of building the World’s IP Blockchain. It triggered some people, primarily @Smokeythebera, @berachain and some from @monad_xyz. https://t.co/EppKLJPZMV.
I didn’t expect such controversy. I was making a pretty damn… https://t.co/OKH0WyBazh
— S.Y. Lee (꧁IP꧂) (@storysylee) August 21, 2024
Future Outlook: Can Berachain Compete in the Market?
The crypto sector is littered with an excessive number of general-purpose L1 blockchains competing for a shared pool of users and capital. For Berachain, its value proposition lies in its PoL economic engine. This unique mechanism prioritizes liquidity making it easy for applications to onboard capital while ensuring user retention via incentives.
Berachain Foundation said on X: “Proof of Liquidity takes liquidity metagames that would otherwise happen in private markets, external to the chain, and implements it at the protocol-level, creating a more efficient market.”
Add Berachain’s brand value and cult-like following, and we have an L1 project that has the potential to challenge even Ethereum and Solana maximalists.
Berachain launching their mainnet this week.
For being a 'hyped' launch, I'm interested to track if any liquidity gets sucked out of existing ecosystems for the new and shiny chain.
Maybe I'm fading, but I don't have high expectations. https://t.co/un2Q3UK6FE
— WarDaddyCapital (@wardaddycapital) February 4, 2025
The Bottom Line
Berachain’s mainnet launch is finally here. Once the excitement around the public launch and token airdrop settles, it will have to prove that its novel PoL engine works not only in theory but also in practice in attracting developers and users from existing blockchains.
FAQs
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References
- Proof of Liquidity: Points, but better (Berachain Blog)
- Berachain bArtio Testnet (Berachain bArtio)
- Berachain Governance Update (Berachain Blog)
- Berachain Foundation 🐻⛓ on X (X)
