USDBerachain Distributes Hundreds of Millions in BERA as Mainnet Goes Live
Massive Airdrop Marks Berachain's Official Launch
Berachain, a bear-themed "proof-of-liquidity" layer-1 blockchain, has officially launched its mainnet, debuting alongside a significant BERA token airdrop valued at $1.17 billion at its peak price on Thursday.
The project, positioned as a competitor to Solana and Ethereum, saw its native token hit a high of $14.83 shortly after trading began on major exchanges before sliding nearly 48% to $7.68 at the time of writing. Binance, OKX, and Coinbase have listed BERA, granting immediate liquidity and access to the market.
Originating from a 2021 Ethereum-based NFT project, Berachain secured over $100 million in funding to develop its blockchain and novel consensus mechanism. The network's pseudonymous co-founder, Smokey the Bera, took to X (formerly Twitter) to express his excitement, stating, “Feels surreal. Team and I will be in the trenches busting bugs and helping teams get set up to win on Berachain.”
The mainnet launched at approximately 8 a.m. ET, with airdropped BERA tokens already appearing in eligible wallets, except where additional steps like bridging or exchange claims were required.
The airdrop covers 15.75% of the total BERA supply, translating to 79 million tokens. Of that, 55.75 million BERA—equal to 11.15% of the supply—became available to users immediately, representing over $800 million in value at peak trading levels. The remaining 4.6% is designated for social media participants, teams, and applications that engaged with Berachain’s “Request for Broposal” incentive program.
The last batch of airdrop recipients includes contributors to Boyco, the chain’s pre-launch liquidity platform, with their distributions expected to roll out over the next 30 to 90 days. If all recipients claim their tokens at the highest recorded price, the total community reward would exceed $1.1 billion.
Berachain’s infrastructure is "EVM-identical," allowing seamless integration with Ethereum Virtual Machine-compatible wallets like MetaMask and Rabby. This compatibility enables users to connect instantly and interact with the ecosystem.
In addition to the airdrop, Berachain has allocated 65.5 million BERA tokens for future incentives targeting developers, users, and applications. The network published its full tokenomics breakdown and eligibility checker on Wednesday. BERA serves as one of three key tokens within the Berachain ecosystem, alongside the governance token BGT and HONEY, its native stablecoin.
This article has been refined and enhanced by ChatGPT.
