Berachain (BERA) Spikes 45%, Driven by Momentum Around iBERA Staking

BERA, the native cryptocurrency of the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM)-identical layer-1 network Berachain, has surged significantly following the latest development regarding iBERA staking. iBERA is a liquid staking token within the Infrared Finance protocol, which is focused on optimizing Proof-of-Liquidity (PoL) on Berachain.

According to a series of tweets from the official Berachain developers X account, iBERA staking is now live on Bera Hub. This gives users the same yield as native BERA staking, which is currently around 38%. It also offers the same mechanics with no tradeoffs.

The announcement triggered a 45% surge in the value of BERA, per CoinGecko’s 24-hour data feed. BERA soared 82% from $0.5 to $1.43 in less than 12 hours. At the time of writing, the asset’s price had corrected slightly to $0.79. Although BERA is up 125% from its all-time low of $0.34 reached on February 6, the asset is still over 94% down from its all-time high of $14 recorded a year ago.

It is also worth noting that the rapid descent from $1.43 is attributed to whale trading and extreme funding anomalies in Binance’s perpetual trading volumes.

iBERA Staking Goes Live

The introduction of iBERA staking unlocks the best yields for BERA holders while securing the Berachain and strengthening PoL. As a liquid staking token, iBERA is obtained by staking BERA through Infrared Finance. Users can maintain liquidity while participating in network security, rather than locking their BERA and losing usability.

Berachain developers revealed that iBERA already represents around 20% of all BERA. Enabling iBERA staking on the Hub will allow a significant portion of the supply to directly participate in securing the chain. More assets staked through the Hub means stronger security, deeper alignment, and more capital reinforcing PoL.

Here’s the process. Staked iBERA turns into siBERA, which earns the same rewards as staked wrapped BERA (sWBERA) and follows the same mechanics. BERA staking and iBERA staking are essentially the same.

Interestingly, iBERA earns additional yield in the form of the Infrared iBERA annual percentage rate (APR), in addition to the Hub’s staking rewards.

“One asset. Multiple yield streams. As other liquid staking tokens grow, the Berachain team will work to add them to BeraHub staking. Bringing all BERA staking into a single, convenient place. If you are holding BERA or iBERA, this is the best place to earn yield on it,” the developers’ account stated.

Berachain’s Maturity as a Network

Within a year after launching its mainnet, Berachain has recorded significant growth and development. The chain’s PoL mechanism changed the structure of layer-1 economics. It creates a marketplace for users, applications, and validators. While validators stake their BERA to receive BGT rewards, they can channel the BGT to application reward vaults to receive protocol incentives. Protocols use the reward vaults to bootstrap liquidity and compensate users for specific actions.

Essentially, Berachain runs on a unique two-token model. It uses BERA as the gas and staking asset and BGT as the non-transferable governance and rewards token. The system aligns network security with liquidity provision, allowing chain rewards to scale with real demand.

The latest development in Berachain staking activities comes about a month after the Berachain team proposed reducing BGT emissions from 8% to 5% annually. Although the move will reduce yields for validators and token holders, Berachain will inch closer to its goal of increased maturity and efficiency.

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