Insights: Berachain's BERA airdrop and tokenomics

Key Information

• Berachain has officially announced the airdrop of its native token, BERA, distributing 15.75% of the total supply to community members.
• The main recipients include testnet users, Bong Bears NFT holders, Boyco program participants, and community projects.
• The airdrop can be claimed via the official site until a later date to be announced.

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What is Berachain (BERA)?

Berachain is a layer 1 blockchain designed specifically for decentralized finance (DeFi). Unlike traditional blockchains operating under Proof of Stake (PoS), Berachain introduces a unique mechanism: Proof of Liquidity (PoL). This model is designed to align the interests of users, validators, and protocols by rewarding liquidity providers on par with network validators.

Berachain's vision is to address one of the primary issues of DeFi ecosystems on most existing blockchains: the lack of native liquidity and inefficient incentive mechanisms to attract and retain capital. Unlike traditional models where "only" validators are rewarded for the activity that dApps generate, Berachain redistributes these rewards to applications and liquidity providers, fostering a more active and efficient ecosystem.

Launched in 2021 as a mere meme around the Bong Bears NFT collection, Berachain quickly evolved into a community movement before becoming a fully-fledged blockchain. Thanks to its strong cultural identity and effective branding based on memes and humorous communication, the project has captured attention and built a highly engaged community well before its launch.

Berachain’s model is distinguished by three different tokens:

• BERA: used for transactions, gas charges and staking
• BGT (Berachain Governance Token): a non-transferable governance token, distributed through Proof of Liquidity and can be burned for BERA or delegated to validators.
• HONEY: a native stablecoin backed by reserves in USDC or USDT, serving as a core asset in Berachain’s DeFi ecosystem.

Since its testnet launch in January 2024, Berachain has attracted over a million active wallets, demonstrating the strong engagement of its community. Berachain aims to position itself as an optimized blockchain for decentralized finance, with an economic model designed to stimulate the growth of on-chain applications.

→ To learn more, check out our full presentation on Berachain:

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Airdrop and Tokenomics of Berachain (BERA)

On February 4, 2025, the Berachain Foundation officially announced the details of the BERA airdrop distribution, marking the final major step before the mainnet launch. As expected, this airdrop aims to reward the community that contributed to the development and early adoption of the Berachain ecosystem.

Tokenomics of BERA

The total supply of BERA is 500 million tokens. These are distributed across five main categories:

• Initial Core Contributors - 84,000,000 (16.8%): Advisors and members of the Big Bera Labs team who contributed to the development of the Berachain blockchain.
• Investors - 171,500,000 (34.3%): Investors in the Seed, Series A, and Series B funding rounds.
• Ecosystem & R&D - 100,000,000 (20%): Reserved for future distributions to support ecosystem development, R&D, growth initiatives, and Berachain Foundation operations. This includes incentives for developers, node operators, and protocol upgrades.
• Future Community Initiatives - 65,500,000 (13.1%): Will this mean a future airdrop? This category is dedicated to supporting developers, applications, and users through incentive programs or grants.
• Airdrop - 79,000,000 (15.8%): The BERA airdrop, which will be detailed in the next section.

According to Berachain’s official documentation, the last three categories above are considered “Community,” meaning that 48.9% of the BERA supply is allocated to the community.

At BERA’s launch, 9.5% of the tokens in the "Ecosystem & R&D" category (equivalent to 9.5 million) will be released, alongside the 79 million tokens dedicated to the airdrop. In other words, this represents 88.5 million BERA in circulation at the token issuance on February 6.

For the remaining supply, each category follows the same token release schedule. After a one-year cliff, 1/6 of the tokens will be unlocked. The remaining 5/6 will then be released linearly over the following 24 months.

Airdrop Details

The BERA airdrop accounts for 15.75% of the total supply, approximately 78.75 million tokens distributed across multiple participant categories. Unlike traditional models where allocations are often reserved for investors or the most active testers, Berachain adopts a broader approach, including testnet users, liquidity providers, content creators, and NFT holders from its ecosystem.

The beneficiaries are distributed as follows:

To check your airdrop eligibility, visit the official checker link.

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Notes, Opinions, and Perspectives

Currently available information indicates that approximately 88.5 million BERA will be in circulation at the mainnet launch on Thursday, February 6. According to pre-market platforms, the estimated price of a BERA token is around $8.5. This would represent a market capitalization of $750 million (and an FDV of $4.25 billion).

This would place BERA at the 115th rank among cryptocurrencies by market cap (according to OAK Research’s ranking) and at the 35th rank if considering FDV. In other words, it is highly likely that the actual value of BERA will be higher at launch.

According to Binance, the number of BERAs in circulation at launch represents 21.5% of the total supply, i.e. 107 million BERAs.

That said, Berachain’s airdrop marks a key milestone in the project’s launch, leveraging its highly engaged community. This approach is based on an incentive-driven philosophy and an organic growth strategy rather than massive allocations to investors.

However, some questions remain:

• The competitiveness of Proof of Liquidity: This model is innovative but must still prove its viability against established PoS systems.
• The initially centralized governance: Key decisions will be controlled by the Foundation before transitioning to a more decentralized model.
• The actual adoption of DeFi applications: Berachain must attract robust protocols and sustainable liquidity to establish itself in an already saturated market.
• General understanding: the three-token system can be a barrier to user understanding.

Despite these uncertainties, Berachain benefits from strong branding, an engaged community, and solid institutional backing. Its unique approach to programmable liquidity could make it a major player in the DeFi-focused layer 1 space.

The remaining question: Can Berachain turn its powerful narrative into real adoption? The answer will unfold in the coming months.

→ To discover other layer 1 blockchains to watch in 2025: