Berachain

Proof‑of‑liquidity separates the chain’s gas token from its governance token. Validators stake BERA to produce blocks but earn BGT, a non‑transferable governance token that controls future emissions. BGT must be delegated to liquidity pools across the ecosystem, meaning protocols compete to attract validator support rather than solely offering the highest yield to stakers. This means network security and protocol liquidity funding are yoked into a single incentive loop, with no parallel in Ethereum, Solana, or Avalanche.

The founders operate under the pseudonyms Smokey the Bera, Papa Bear, Homme Bera, and Dev Bear. They are known to have begun as NFT builders with the Bong Bears collection, which gained a cult following on Ethereum before they pivoted to building an independent Layer‑1. Smokey has represented the project in public events and fundraising but detailed personal identities have not been disclosed.

Berachain raised a $42 million Series A in April 2023 led by Polychain Capital with Hack VC and Shima Capital (per Bloomberg, April 2023). It followed with a $100 million Series B in April 2024 at a reported $1.5 billion valuation, co‑led by Framework Ventures and Brevan Howard Digital’s Abu Dhabi office (per CoinDesk, April 2024), bringing total disclosed funding to $142 million.

The Berachain Foundation, registered in the Cayman Islands, allocates grants and developer funding from the project’s raise to populate the chain with DeFi, gaming, and NFT protocols. Ecosystem participation is permissionless: any team can build and compete for BGT delegation from validators. The foundation runs builder programs across North America and Asia to seed projects.

BERA is the chain’s native gas token used for transaction fees and validator staking. BGT is a non‑transferable governance and delegation token issued to validators and stakers as a reward for contributing to network security. Only BGT holders vote on future emission parameters and which protocols receive incentive weight, creating a structural separation between the unit of exchange and the unit of control.

As of May 2026, the Berachain mainnet has not launched. A public testnet has processed transactions and attracted over 100,000 wallets, used to stress‑test the proof‑of‑liquidity mechanism before a full production release and associated token issuance.

Performance benchmarks are similar in ambition — sub‑second finality and high throughput — but the consensus and incentivization model is the differentiator. Solana uses proof‑of‑history combined with proof‑of‑stake; Avalanche uses subnet‑based consensus with separate validator economics. Berachain’s proof‑of‑liquidity aims to make protocol value and chain security the same system, with validator rewards dependent on deploying governance weight across application‑layer liquidity pools rather than simply locking tokens.