Berachain is advancing its on-chain governance with a system that rewards liquidity, not just token ownership. The blockchain platform announced Monday it has entered a new phase of its Proof-of-Liquidity (PoL) rollout, allowing decentralized applications (dApps) to compete for reward emissions.
The move marks a shift from a limited pilot to a broader, application-first model across the Berachain ecosystem.
At the core of this system is a novel mechanism. Instead of requiring users to lock up tokens in staking contracts, Berachain ties governance rights to active participation in decentralized finance.
Liquidity providers earn the Berachain Governance Token (BGT), a non-transferable, soulbound token that must be delegated to validators. These validators, in turn, depend on BGT to increase their influence over the network’s consensus and decision-making processes.
First Pools Approved for Emissions
The first group of reward vaults to go live includes native BEX pools and third-party DEX pools across the ecosystem. Berachain selected vaults based on liquidity depth, contract security, decentralization standards, and integration with Berachain’s core tokens, such as BERA, HONEY, BYUSD, USDC, wETH, and BTC.
Approved BEX pools include:
- WBERA/LBGT by Bera Paw
- DINERO/WBERA and WETH/beraETH by Dinero Protocol
- WBERA/iBERA by Infrared
- stBGT/WBERA by Stride
Among the non-BEX pools approved:
- USDa/sUSDa by Avalon Labs on Kodiak
- WBTC/uniBTC by Bedrock on Kodiak
- hiBERO/HONEY by Beradrome
- WGbera/NECT and WGbera/WBERA by Smilee Finance on Burrbear
- SolvBTC/WBTC by Solv Protocol on Kodiak
- STONE/beraETH by Dinero Protocol on Kodiak
The emissions are overseen by the BGT Foundation and its Guardians, who also review new vault proposals. A second batch of whitelisting decisions is expected to be finalized after March 27.
A System Built on Liquidity and Delegation
Berachain’s approach to network governance hinges on liquidity provision. BGT emissions are not distributed based on static holdings but earned by staking liquidity pool assets. Validators gain influence by attracting delegated BGT, tying the chain’s security directly to economic participation.
“Berachain was built to support applications,” developers stated. With the PoL system live, builders are encouraged to submit reward vault proposals (RFRVs), as weekly reviews continue to expand participation beyond decentralized exchanges into real-world assets, gaming, and other sectors.
The PoL rollout follows Berachain’s early momentum. Before mainnet launch in February, the platform’s pre-launch liquidity platform Boyco amassed $3 billion in total value locked. Since then, Berachain has raised $142 million in funding across two rounds, both led by Polychain Capital.
