What is Berachain?

Berachain is an EVM-compatible L1 public chain based on Cosmos SDK, focusing on DeFi. It originated from the Bong Bears NFT series released in August 2021. After experiencing the ups and downs of the market, the team realized the crucial role of liquidity in the DeFi ecosystem, and therefore designed and developed the Berachain public chain, aiming to address liquidity issues through an innovative POL consensus mechanism.

On November 28, 2023, Berachain started its internal testing. Subsequently, on January 11, 2024, the day when the Bitcoin spot ETF was approved, Berachain’s public testnet “Artio” was officially launched, marking the project’s entry into a new development stage. On February 5, 2025, Berachain officially launched its mainnet and implemented a large-scale BERA token airdrop plan, aiming to reward early supporters and encourage community participation.

Berachain is an L1 public chain originated from the smoking bear NFT (Image Source:https://www.coinage.media/how-berachain)

Berachain Financing Status

Series A financing

In April 2023, Berachain completed a $42 million Series A funding round, bringing its post-money valuation to $420 million. The round was led by Polychain Capital, with participation from several well-known investment firms, including OKX Ventures, Hack VC, Tribe Capital, Shima Capital, and others. Additionally, industry leaders such as former partners from Goldentree Asset Management and Dragonfly Capital, as well as Tendermint co-founder Zaki Manian, also participated in the investment, further strengthening Berachain’s influence within the DeFi ecosystem.

Series B Financing

In April 2024, Berachain completed another $100 million Series B financing, with a valuation of $1.5 billion, nearly 3.5 times higher than the Series A financing, reflecting market recognition of its technological development, ecosystem expansion, and future growth potential. The funds from this round of financing are expected to be used for further development of the Berachain mainnet, ecosystem expansion, and optimization of its PoL mechanism to improve the capital efficiency of DeFi protocols.

Berachain Token Model

Berachain adopts a unique token model, drawing on the successful experience of multiple DeFi projects, and optimizing liquidity incentives and governance mechanisms. Its core design not only enhances the capital efficiency of the ecosystem, but also creates a more diverse income model for liquidity providers and governance participants. There are three tokens on the chain: BGT (governance token), BERA (Gas Token), and HONEY (stablecoin), among which:

BERA: Used for paying transaction fees (Gas), on-chain settlement, and smart contract execution, similar to the role of ETH in the Ethereum network;

HONEY: Inspired by the concept of stablecoins in the Terra ecosystem, HONEY as a stable asset circulating within the protocol improves the availability of funds;

BGT: Governance token, separated from on-chain Gas token (BERA), ensuring governance rights are not overly concentrated in the hands of whales.

The operation mode of the three tokens on the Berachain chain (Image source:https://web3caff.com/en/archives/83565)

Specifically, users providing liquidity on Berachain can not only receive BGT rewards but also choose to delegate BGT governance rights to validator nodes, earning dual incentives of BERA + HONEY, while avoiding the costless acquisition of governance tokens under the traditional PoS mechanism.

In short, Berachain’s third-generation token economic model separates gas and gov, maximizes liquidity release, avoids harming the interests of active users who participate positively in the network, solves the contradiction between the activity of staking participation in governance and liquidity. In the future, with the increase in the number of users, Berachain will further attract more ecological projects to settle in, coupled with the Berachain governance reward mechanism, forming a positive flywheel.

Berachain airdrop distribution

Wallet addresses that meet the criteria will automatically receive airdrop rewards. The recipients of this Berachain airdrop include the following groups:

Testnet users: Users who have actively participated in the Berachain testnet.

Liquidity providers: Users who have provided liquidity to the Berachain ecosystem before the launch of the Boyco program.

Social media active contributors: community members who contribute on official social platforms.

Ecosystem NFT holders: including holders of Berachain-related NFTs such as Bong Bears.

BNB holders: 2% of the total airdrop amount will be exclusively distributed to Binance Exchange BNB holders.

Berachain first airdrop distribution (Image source:https://followin.io/en/feed/16140413)

Introduction to Berachain Checker

Berachain Checker is an airdrop query tool officially launched by Berachain to help users confirm whether they qualify for BERA token airdrops, aiming to increase the transparency of airdrop distribution and promote community participation in the Berachain ecosystem.

Berachain checker page (Image source:https://followin.io/en/feed/16140413)

Berachain Checker usage steps

1. Visit the official website

   Go tohttps://checker.berachain.com/restrictedThe airdrop query tool provided by the official Berachain.

2. Qualification inquiry

   On the website, enter your personal Berachain wallet address, or register an account, to check if you are eligible for the airdrop.

3. Receive BERA NFT

   If the user’s query result meets the conditions, they can claim the BERA NFT according to the website instructions; After claiming, the user needs to bridge the held NFT from the Ethereum network to Berachain to complete the entire airdrop claim process.

4. Manage BERA tokens

   After completing the above steps, users can deposit the received BERA tokens into Metamask or other EVM compatible wallets.

Ecological crisis after airdrop

After Berachain launched the airdrop, the project quickly encountered strong reactions from the community. On social media platforms, the hashtag #BeraScam quickly became a hot topic of discussion, and many users questioned the fairness of the airdrop standards and distribution mechanisms. The controversy mainly focuses on two aspects:

Qualification recognition issue: Many early users and ecological contributors of Berachain found that they did not qualify for the airdrop;

Allocation standard dispute: Some users claim to be among the first 100 users of Berachain, but the airdrop page shows a zero balance; Some users executed test transactions worth over 1 million USD on the Berachain V1 testnet, but did not receive any token rewards.

The controversy has exposed potential flaws in the Berachain mechanism and the trust crisis caused by insufficient community communication. To ensure the healthy development of the ecosystem, the project should pay more attention to community feedback in future operations, increase transparency, and optimize incentive distribution mechanisms to avoid similar disputes from happening again. Otherwise, long-term trust deficits may weaken Berachain’s competitiveness and even accelerate the loss of early supporters.

Conclusion

Berachain Checker, as an airdrop inquiry tool officially launched by Berachain, played a crucial role in this BERA token airdrop, covering core functions such as airdrop qualification inquiry and NFT claim. However, the controversy after the airdrop distribution also exposed the shortcomings of Berachain in incentive mechanism design and user communication, triggering extensive community discussions.

Looking ahead, Berachain can further optimize Checker to make it a key bridge connecting users and the ecosystem, and appropriately expand its functions, such as on-chain data analysis, historical contribution record inquiry, and governance participation tracking. With the improvement of functions, Berachain Checker is expected to become an important infrastructure in its ecosystem, helping the project move towards a more mature DeFi ecosystem.