It's been almost 3 months since Berachain mainnet was deployed.
Since then, I have observed some negative and positive trends, especially with the implementation of reward vaults.
Perhaps many people have a reserved attitude when it comes to building on Berachain.
Some of the reasons might be:
- Monopolization of attention by a few large projects
- A feeling of centralization
- A complex culture that can be interpreted as a gated community
- Trading volumes and $BERA price are lower compared to other Layers
The reality is that PoL is the most powerful mechanism for sustainability and liquidity maintenance, with significantly higher capacity compared to other known mechanisms, especially within the context of a specific ecosystem’s economy.
The question is: why would I want to come to Berachain?
Despite its ups and downs, Berachain core idea is aimed at producing cohesion and sustainability for all participants in the ecosystem: users, apps, and validators.
I won't go into detail about PoL, but if you're interested, you can read more on Berachain blog
Why Berachain from a builder POV?
I believe anyone trying to build something on chain had this question in mind: where to build? If, oftentimes we might get mislead into one chain or another because of the daily volume, this take might be our doom on the long road.
Because everything is moving in cycles: Bitcoin-Solana-Ethereum whatever.
Don't get me wrong, I do think volume is an important metric but not defining in one's decision to build on a certain platform. Metrics like TVL, protocols integrated, active wallets, community and culture should be important things to look on.
And while Berachain is well known for it's rich culture, I think there's couple more things to take into consideration:
- According to @nansen_ai data, there's over 300k active wallets on Berachain, putting Bera on top performers in network growth over the past weeks
- Berachain has a TVL onchain of $2.834b according to DefiLlama platform, making it into the top 10 chains with highest liquidity. Evhas $338 mil mcap (by the time I'm writing this), this can be changed anytime, especially because reward vaults are mostly encouraged to be paired with
- Also, 'the chain with the bear on it' is on 7th place according to the Top Protocols by Chain section from the same platform mentioned before, supported by major protocols like Infrared Finance, Kodiak Finance, Dolomite, PendleFi and others, making Berachain a leading blockchain for DeFi and more.
- At launch day, there were over 400 projects/protocols building on the chain or integrated.
- Over 130mil transactions, more than 2600 contracts deployed, with insignificant fees (median = 0.0050$ - Dune dashboard), and daily volume around $30-60 mil
But enough with the data, I think from a builder perspective you have all the means to build on Bera because usually the foundation is very supportive and always gives guidance to take the right path. Besides, the PoL mechanic is set up so you can use liquidity in order to provide for your services, while you can also reward your users if you get approved on reward vaults, enabling BGT emissions which can be used to boost validators (win-win situation).
You build a game? You got revenue coming back to your users - you maintain user retention - you attract revenue and so on.
You are focused on DeFi? Plenty of protocols to partner with and leverage their infrastructure (or build your own).
You build RWAs? Same flywheel applies with BGT emissions.
The beauty about PoL is that you can build upon it anything you like - from a memecoin to a whole L2.
And you can scale from an idea and build as much as possible, because the whole system is built so that liquidity can continuously flow in the eco so everyone can get it when needed.
The only pitfall right now? - you need to bootstrap liquidityThrough Request for Brobosal (RFB), initial builders got some $BERA dropped to use it as incentives for the community. But even if it has concluded, I still believe projects/companies with an already established community can raise the amount desired. ( See RamenFinance ticketing system for token presales)
Of course, many more things can be said here but I think if someone wants to build they already got their research done.
But what's in for me as a user?To throw the great dilemma of left, right, or middle curves into play, I would say there is something for each of these categories.
But before we dive deeper, let's check why to touch the chain first of all.
- Berachain has a strong culture, dating back to 2021 when it started as a NFT collection (Bong Bears). And even if I'm a youngster in this ecosystem, with less than a year spent, I gotta admit I had the most fun I've had in crypto since I joined in 2021
- Berachain has one of the top mindshare capture over the most important L1s.
To sum up: Building on Berachain has more advantages than other L1s there, and if price action is frightening, the data doesn't lie when it's saying we reached the bottom.
If you want to explore Berachain as a user and don't know where to start, we got plenty of communities offering educational guidance plus a lot of people that can give a hand in learning more about the chain. I hope you found this article at least a bit useful - I might have missed many alphas but I'm working with 0.69% of my brain capacity these days. Ooga booga.
Berachain.