Berachain hard fork swaps dual-token system for WBERA rewards

Berachain will implement a hard fork on Wednesday at 4 pm UTC that ends Bera Governance Token (BGT) emissions and shifts the network’s incentive system to Wrapped BERA (WBERA), the Berachain Foundation announced.

WBERA emissions began Tuesday. After the fork, the protocol will distribute fixed amounts of WBERA as block rewards and emphasize sWBERA, the staked form of WBERA. Reward vaults and liquid-staking incentives tied to BGT will be phased out in the days following the upgrade.

The transition follows a two-stage process: the start of WBERA emissions, then the scheduled halt of BGT emissions at the hard fork. The foundation projected annual percentage rates for some yields could triple after the upgrade and warned yields may fluctuate during the initial days after the fork.

Market activity around the upgrade was muted. BERA fell about 7% in the 24 hours to 8:34 am UTC and has declined roughly 88% over the past year. Total value locked fell by $1.79 million, or about 3%, over the same 24-hour period, leaving roughly $56 million locked and placing the network near the mid-30s by TVL rankings.

On-chain statistics for the most recent 24-hour window showed $41 in chain fees, $3,359 in application revenue and $14,816 paid out in token incentives.

Before the upgrade, users seeking higher yields managed multiple reward mechanisms and liquid-staking tokens linked to BGT. The foundation described the new reward system centered on sWBERA as simpler and more sustainable than the previous arrangement, which split functions between the transferable BERA token and the non-transferable governance token BGT.