Berachain Mainnet Launches February 6
Long-hyped, EVM-equivalent L1 Berachain will launch its mainnet on February 6, 2025, introducing its Proof of Liquidity consensus model and tri-token economy.
What’s the Scoop?
- Origins & Proof of Liquidity: Berachain’s roots trace back to the viral Bong Bears NFT collection, which built one of crypto’s most engaged communities. BERA's PoL consensus mechanism grants governance rights for liquidity provision, boosting network participation.
- Tri-Token Economy: Berachain operates with three distinct tokens:
- BGT (Bera Governance Token): Earned exclusively by providing liquidity, granting governance rights and validator delegation power.
- BERA (Gas Token): Used for transaction fees and can be minted by burning BGT at a 1:1 ratio.
- HONEY (Stablecoin): Pegged to USDC, serving as the ecosystem’s primary medium of exchange.
- Funding: The project has raised ~$142M, including a $42M round led by Polychain in 2023 and an additional $100M in a Series B round.
Bankless Take
Q5 is finally here and now we get to see Proof of Liquidity in action. While there certainly remain headwinds in the market, Berachain’s tight-knit community and unique, self-reinforcing economic model may be enough to weather this tumultuous time to launch.
Given the momentum the chain’s generated, we will regardless see a flurry of activity from day one as memes are launched and people rush to the chain for yields. Further, Berachain is the first in the series of these next-generation EVM chains (others include HyperEVM, Monad, and MegaETH) to go live. Thus, its launch will serve as an interesting litmus test of the demand for these environments, which comes as alternate VMs like Solana and Sui continue gaining traction as top destinations for flows.
Jack Inabinet Jan 15, 2025 • 4 min read