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Deep-dive: Berachain and How to Stake BERA

Chorus One
Chorus One
November 20, 2024
5 min read
November 20, 2024
5 min read
Key Details

Chorus One Validator: 0x6bcBe50912a51c4d956444CCbd2F3e9dAA217CC1

Recommended Wallet: MetaMask

Block Explorer: https://bartio.beratrail.io/

Staking Rewards: https://www.stakingrewards.com/asset/berachain-bera/about

Connecting to Testnet: https://docs.berachain.com/developers/network-configurations

About Berachain

Berachain (BERA), currently in their final testnet phase (Cartio), is changing how DeFi users access liquidity, supercharging applications, and providing flexibility and adaptability to the thriving digital economy. It combines the capabilities of the Cosmos SDK and introduces its novel 'Proof of Liquidity' as well as their new modular implementation of the EVM called Polaris. This not only tackles current obstacles but also paves the way for fresh avenues of creativity and advancement within the DeFi industry.

Through the unique Proof-of-Liquidity (PoL) consensus mechanism, Berachain is transforming traditional staking by requiring liquidity contributions instead of merely locking assets. This innovative approach incentivizes users to supply liquidity to the network, strengthening decentralized applications (dApps) and rewarding participants for enhancing liquidity pools.

What is Proof of Liquidity(PoL)?

To support the PoL model, Berachain utilizes a tri-token model comprising the Bera Governance Token (BGT), the native gas token (BERA), and Honey (HONEY).

Each token serves a specific role:

  • BGT is central to governance and staking, granting holders voting rights for protocol decisions and access to rewards through whitelisted liquidity pools.
  • BERA powers transactions within the network.
  • HONEY facilitates lending, borrowing, and liquidity provision, driving ecosystem activity.

BGT plays a central role in the staking process on Berachain. It grants holders governance rights, enabling them to vote on proposals that shape protocol upgrades.

  • Users can earn BGT by participating in PoL or staking BERA directly to a validator.
  • For PoL participants, BGT rewards are distributed through rewards vaults tied to particular liquidity pools, which must first be approved and whitelisted through a governance approval process.
    • Once a pool is whitelisted, users can contribute liquidity to these vaults and receive BGT rewards in return.

Together, this tri-token model creates a robust and dynamic economic framework that aligns network security, liquidity, and governance. While currently still in its testnet phase, Berachain’s innovative model is poised to reshape blockchain staking upon mainnet launch.

Chorus One and BeraBoost

Chorus One has been involved with the ongoing developments of Berachain and their new PoL model and is prepared to offer day one support for the network. Alongside this, we have created a special algorithm called BeraBoost to maximize BGT rewards for PoL participants allowing Chorus One to provide infrastructure that maximizes the performance of the PoL system, ensuring that liquidity is efficiently managed while securing the network through the use of our in-house algorithm.

The BeraBoost Algorithm

Chorus One will publish our BeraBoost algorithm on day one, which optimizes rewards distribution for liquidity providers and validators on Berachain. This approach maximizes returns for BGT delegators by tracking LP positions and directs incentives to the most relevant reward vaults.

BeraBoost which will maximize delegator income by strategically distributing BGT emissions to their reward vault positions. This is a sophisticated approach that takes into account nuances like vault turnover and varying incentive liquidity.

Chorus One BeraBoost will operate on a public dashboard, providing transparent, optimized incentive capture for delegators. BeraBoost maximizes incentives taking into account delegator reward vault positions and Chorus One will continue to improve BeraBoost as the chain matures.

How to stake BERA

Berachain Testnet Links

Below are the links you can use to get started on Berachain testnet if you'd like to explore the PoL mechanisms and staking process first-hand.

Berachain Faucet: The Berachain testnet faucet is the first place to begin to get some testnet BERA.

Home | BEX: BEX is the home of the swap and liquidity provisioning features to participate in PoL.

Vaults | BGT Station: BGT Station is your all in one stop to stake your liquidity tokens and delegate BGT and interact with other features of the network.

How to stake to Chorus One

Once you've acquired some testnet tokens, you can use BEX to swap your BERA into different tokens you wish to provide liquidity for.  For example, let's say you wanted to provide liquidity to the BERA/HONEY pool.

First, navigate to https://bartio.bex.berachain.com/swap and select how much BERA you wish to swap to HONEY.

Note: When providing liquidity, you will need to provide a roughly 50/50 distribution in value of each token. For example, $100 worth of BERA and $100 worth of HONEY.

You will see a preview of your swap, go ahead and complete the steps by approving the transaction in your wallet.

Once you have the tokens you want to provide liquidity for, navigate to https://bartio.bex.berachain.com/pools to select the liquidity pool you wish to interact with.

In this case, we will be demonstrating with the HONEY/BERA pool.

  • Note: When you deposit your BERA to a pool, it will become wBERA.

Click on 'Add' to be brought to the liquidity deposit screen. You can click on 'MAX' for either token to see what the most liquidity you can provide is based on the amounts of each token you have.

Next, click on 'Preview' and if it all looks good, go ahead and approve the transaction in your wallet and provide the liquidity to the pool.

After you've done so, you'll likely be prompted to deposit your liquidity receipt tokens to a rewards vault to begin earning BGT. (screenshot example below).

  • However, if you are not, you can navigate to BGT Station to proceed with the next steps.

From BGT station, make sure you select the tab at the top called 'Vaults' and from there you can search for a rewards vault for HONEY/WBERA to stake you receipt tokens to.

  • You might see a lot of possible rewards vaults (aka "gauges") to stake receipt tokens to.
  • You can use the search bar to find the HONEY/WBERA vault where you can stake your receipt token.

Using the search function can be very helpful to find the vault you wish to use.

Simply click on 'Deposit' and you can stake your liquidity receipt tokens from your deposit earlier.

Enter the amount of the receipt tokens you wish to stake, then click on 'Deposit' to finalize the transaction in your wallet.

And now you've successfully participated in PoL! Your receipt tokens will begin accruing BGT rewards that you can claim and then stake with the Chorus One validator.

However, it's worth noting that BGT will not be instantly earned for your receipt token deposit, however, you will begin earning BGT from your stake in that rewards vault.

As it accrues, you can claim your pending BGT rewards.

  • The screenshot below shows an example of BGT rewards that have accrued in the HONEY/WBERA vault we staked the liquidity receipt token to earlier.

Simply click on 'Claim Rewards' and you will claim the BGT that has accrued from the rewards vault.

If you are staking to other rewards vaults, you can see an overview of all your pending BGT rewards from: https://bartio.station.berachain.com/rewards

Once you have your BGT, you can navigate to the 'Validators' tab of BGT Station to select Chorus One.

Once on the Chorus One validator page, simply click on 'Delegate' to delegate your BGT to the validator.

Here you will see the screen where you can choose how much BGT to delegate.

After you've entered how much BGT you wish to delegate, click on 'Queue Boost' which will start the delegation process.

The delegation process is not instant. When you queue the BGT boost to the Chorus One validator, it will process in approximately 1-2 hours.

You can view the status of your delegation boost from the same page you used to delegate.

Please note that to finalize the BGT delegation, you will need to return to this page and confirm the boost after the time in the delegation queue has passed.

After you've come back and confirmed your BGT delegation to the Chorus One validator, you're all set! You've successfully delegated BGT and have boosted the Chorus One validator further, thus increasing the amount of BGT it will distribute to your rewards vault (in this case, HONEY/WBERA).

You will continue to accrue more BGT over time from your PoL positions which can be claimed from the 'Rewards' tab of BGT Station.

Converting BGT to BERA

BGT cannot be transferred to another wallet. It is soul bound to your wallet. While BGT can be delegated, it can also be converted one way in a 1:1 ratio to BERA.

Please note it is not possible to convert BERA back to BGT. This is a one way swap only.

This allows you to use your BGT rewards to either further boost the Chorus One validator or you can swap your BGT to BERA to use it for other functions in the Berachain ecosystem.

This 1:1 swap can be done from the 'Redeem' tab on BGT Station.

Simply select how much BGT you'd like to convert to BERA and click on 'Confirm' then finalize the transaction in your wallet.

And that's it -- You've now converted your BGT rewards to BERA and can use that BERA to swap in BEX or participate in other aspects of the Berachain ecosystem!

A Note to Institutional Investors

If you are an institutional investor looking to stake Berachain (BERA) with Chorus One, please reach out to us via our staking request form.

About Chorus One

Chorus One is one of the largest institutional staking providers globally, operating infrastructure for over 60 Proof-of-Stake (PoS) networks, including Ethereum, Cosmos, Solana, Avalanche, Near, and others. Since 2018, we have been at the forefront of the PoS industry, offering easy-to-use, enterprise-grade staking solutions, conducting industry-leading research, and investing in innovative protocols through Chorus One Ventures. As an ISO 27001 certified provider, Chorus One also offers slashing and double-signing insurance to its institutional clients. For more information, visit chorus.one or follow us on LinkedIn, X (formerly Twitter), and Telegram.