Author: Jack Inabinet, Kazu Umemoto, Bankless; Compiled by: Five Baht, Golden Finance

What started as a small team of anonymous people selling NFTs to their friends has now grown into the largest One of the most watched L1 projects. Berachain is an EVM-compatible L1 that raised $100 million in 2024 and its mainnet is rumored to be launching 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 Stakeholders are able to secure the network with virtually any asset of value, from stablecoins to AMM liquidity provider positions to lending market deposits.

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

One of the problems faced when applications and blockchains are first launched is 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 work with Berachain to create a platform called Boyco. The platform appears to have been a huge success, with over $1.5 billion in total value locked and ready to launch 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 secure 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, with a total locked value of $435 million, allowing users Deposit different versions of Bitcoin, such as cbBTC, WBTC, etc., once Berachain is 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.

Ethena x Concrete vault is perfect for USDe and sUSDeholders, as you will still earn Ethena points, but will also be eligible for some Berachain rewards.

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 redeemed for BERA at a 1:1 ratio. Infrared has come up with a solution, iBGT, a liquid version of BGT that can be used in other DeFi protocols and can also be staked with Infrared to earn 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.

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 greater status in its farm pool, thereby earning more BGT rewards.

Beracana also has a lottery arm within its protocol, where users deposit 10 USDC and a winner is randomly selected to win, with a small portion of the winnings being 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.

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

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

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 up 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!