Understand the competitiveness of Berachain ecosystem in one article

Author: Jack Inabinet, Kazu Umemoto, Bankless; Compiler: Wu Baht, Golden Finance

What started as a small team of anonymous people selling NFTs to their friends has grown into one of the most talked about L1 projects of the year. Berachain is an EVM-compatible L1 that raised $100 million in 2024 and is rumored to be launching its mainnet soon.

Unlike contemporary proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchain designs—which limit staking to native assets (i.e., ETH or SOL)—Berachain’s novel proof-of- liquidity (PoL) consensus mechanism enables stakers to use virtually any Assets of value to protect the network, from stablecoins to AMM liquidity provider positions to lending market deposits.

By combining network token incentives with financial benefits for DeFi users, Berachain is committed to a self-reinforcing growth cycle that promotes market-leading liquidity and revenue opportunities, making it a dominant force in layer 1 blockchains !

Pre-release deposit opportunities

One of the problems faced when applications and blockchains were first launched was attracting liquidity. In the past, projects offered points or airdrop rewards that were farmed, and once users completed farming, they withdrew the liquidity.

To solve this problem, teams such as LayerZero, Stargate, Royco, and Enso decided to partner with Berachain to create a platform called Boyco. The platform seems to have been a huge success, with over $1.5 billion in total locked value, ready to be launched on Berachain!

Boyco allows dApps to provide pre-release liquidity markets for blue-chip tokens such as ETH and BTC, with lock-in periods for users. This helps dApps ensure liquidity before a blockchain launch, putting the team in the best position to attract users immediately upon launch.

Here are some of our favorite vaults:

• The Ether.fi BTC vault is one of the most valuable vaults with a total locked value of $435 million, allowing users to deposit different versions of Bitcoin such as cbBTC, WBTC, etc. Once Berachain goes online, it will be locked for 90 days , but in return, users will receive Bera rewards and BTC earning opportunities.

• In the Dinero ETH vault, users can lock their ETH for 1-3 months and receive $100,000 in DINERO distributed to vault users every week.

• The Ethena x Concrete vault is great for USDe and sUSDe holders as you will still earn Ethena points but will also be eligible for some Berachain rewards.

Infrared Finance

Infrared is committed to improving the infrastructure surrounding Berachain's PoL mechanism through node infrastructure, treasury, and a liquidity staking solution for BGT tokens.

BGT, the governance token behind Berachain, is a soul-bound token, so it cannot be transferred to another wallet, but it can be exchanged for BERA at a 1:1 ratio. Infrared proposes a solution, iBGT, which is a liquid version of BGT that can be used in other DeFi protocols and can also be pledged through Infrared to obtain delegation rewards. Users can earn iBGT through Infrared's vault by staking certain LP tokens to receive distributions from validators in the form of iBGT.

Beracana

Since Berachain operates on a PoL mechanism, in order to maximize on-chain rewards, you must try to obtain as much BGT as possible. Beracana helps through its farm, allowing users to stake their HONEY and gain a greater position in its farm pool, thereby earning more BGT rewards.

There is also a lottery department in Beracana’s protocol, where users deposit 10 USDC and the winner is randomly selected to win the prize, with a small portion of the prize money returned to Beracana. Lottery losers receive a special token, LUSDC, which can be used in Bercana's loser lottery. In the loser's lottery, users can win NFTs or tokens from projects within the Berachain ecosystem.

BGT Market

While BGT tokens are soul-bound, the BGT market has created a way for these tokens to be “transferable.” You can claim it through the BGT Market's smart contract and it will go into their wallet, but you still have full control over BGT.

You can still exchange BGT for BERA, delegate it to a validator, or sell it in an auction.

in conclusion

Compared to other L1s, Berachain takes a different approach when creating a chain, focusing on creating a community first. The road to L1 launch is long, but with Boyco having approximately $1.5 billion in TVL locked and ecosystem projects expected to launch with deep liquidity, Berachain is ready to hit the ground running as soon as its chain goes live. If the team can retain users and their capital, long-term success seems within reach!