DeFi-Focused Layer 1 Berachain Raises $42M Series A at $420.69M Valuation

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Berachain, a layer 1 blockchain focused on decentralized finance (DeFi), has announced its $42 million Series A at a valuation of $420.69 million (conveniently, on April 20).

The fundraise, finalized last December, was led by Polychain Capital and included investors Hack VC, dao5, Tribe Capital, Shima Capital and Robot Ventures, as well as several undisclosed centralized crypto exchanges.

If it’s not obvious from the $420.69 million valuation, Berachain is a project that doesn’t shy away from crypto flair. It was launched by a quartet of pseudonymous founders (Smokey the Bera, Papa Bear, Homme Bera and Dev Bear) who are self-described “crypto natives.” ‘Bera’ is ‘bear’ intentionally misspelled, a sly hat tip to the deranged crypto rallying cry ‘Hodl.’

Cosmos-based Berachain is, in essence, a rewind back to the high-flying, is-this-a-ponzi DeFi projects of 2021, before all the frauds, bankruptcies and Wells Notices sucked the degeneracy (and yields) out of crypto.

Berachain’s origins trace back to a NFT collection, Bong Bears, which three of the four pseudonymous co-founders launched in August 2021. The project’s OpenSea description reads: “100 absolutely zooted NFT bears getting baked.” But even the project’s name (and Smokey’s) is a misnomer. “I don’t think anyone on the core team even smokes,” said Berachain co-founder Smokey in an interview with CoinDesk.

At the time, the team was inspired by the rebasing protocol OlympusDAO, which was rapidly gaining traction in the crypto community. In the fall of 2021, OlympusDAO’s OHM token traded at a high of $1,300. (It has since fallen to about $10 per OHM). Bong Bears followed in the footsteps of OlympusDAO, creating the first-ever collection of rebasing NFTs, which spawned several new collections – Bond Bears, Boo Bears, Baby Bears, Band Bears and Bit Bears.

Smokey says the pivot from Bong Bears NFTs to launching a fully-fledged layer-1 blockchain is not so far-fetched. “Bong Bears bootstrapped a community of DeFi enthusiasts,” he said. “What if we could take some of the liquidity and make it useful?”

Berachain says its technology will allow staked assets to be used in DeFi protocols, creating more liquidity and capital efficiency on-chain. Currently, staked assets, such as staked Ethereum, are locked while they are used to secure the underlying blockchain’s network. Berachain says their ‘Proof of Liquidity’ consensus will allow users to simultaneously stake assets on Berachain and use those assets to trade, borrow or lend on-chain.

According to a press release, the Bera ecosystem already has over $250 million in committed capital to deploy, and will launch a public incentivized testnet in the coming weeks.

“In a lot of cases, liquidity is mercenary,” said Smokey. “The reason why they’re mercenary is that you can’t do much with stake assets, they just sit there.”

“Berachain…provides the first structure which aligns incentives between liquidity and security at the chain level, creating a massive opportunity to absorb the majority of liquidity and turn it into a sticky, capital efficient base for DeFi platforms to build on top of,” said Polychain founder Olaf Carlson-Wee in a statement.

Berachain will also launch BERA, its native gas token, and BGT, its governance token. The ecosystem will also include a stablecoin, HONEY.

“If people want to think that we’re a rug, I would tell them to do their own research,” said Smokey. “There’s a non-trivial history of pseudonymous projects doing good things.”

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