Berachain outlines tokenomics ahead of mainnet launch and airdrop

The Berachain Foundation outlined Berachain’s tokenomics ahead of the much-anticipated Layer 1’s mainnet launch on Thursday, Feb. 6.

According to tokenomics documents released on Wednesday, of the 500 million BERA tokens issued at Genesis, 48.9% are allocated to the community, including 15.8% for an airdrop, 13.1% for additional community initiatives and 20% for ecosystem research and development. A further 34.3% is set aside for Berachain’s seed, Series A and Series B investors, and 16.8% is reserved for advisors and members of Big Bera Labs, the core contributors to the Berachain blockchain.

All parties follow the same vesting schedule, the project said, with 1/6th of tokens set to unlock after a one-year cliff, with the remainder vesting linearly over the following 24 months. BERA will have an inflation schedule of around 10% per annum, subject to governance.

BERA serves as the native gas and staking token of Berachain, while a separate token, BGT, will facilitate governance and economic incentives. BGT is non-transferable and can only be acquired by engaging in activities within the Berachain ecosystem.

The Berachain Foundation also unveiled an airdrop checker for Berachain community members, applications and liquidity providers. Tokens can be claimed on Thursday using a variety of EVM wallets, including Metamask and OKX Wallet, the project said. Eligible claimants include testnet users, depositors to Berachain’s pre-launch liquidity initiative, Boyco, social media contributors and holders of ecosystem NFTs such as Bong Bears.

The airdrop distribution also includes a 2% allocation for holders of BNB within Binance, which is set to be among the initial centralized crypto exchanges to list the token at 1 p.m. UTC on Thursday, alongside Bybit.

What is Berachain?

Berachain is an Ethereum Virtual Machine-compatible Layer 1 blockchain built on the Cosmos SDK that uses a variant of delegated proof of stake consensus called “proof of liquidity,” an attack resistance mechanism meant to harmonize staking and align incentives between security and liquidity.

Berachain’s bear-themed crypto project is run by a group of pseudonymous co-founders known as Homme Bera, Dev Bear, Papa Bear and Smokey the Bera.

In April 2024, Berachain announced it had raised $100 million in a Series B funding round led by Framework Ventures and the Abu Dhabi branch of Brevan Howard Digital. The project previously raised $42 million in a private token round led by Polychain Capital in April 2023.