Growth 0 to 1: Berachain

1. The chain has a bear on it.

1.1. Origins in the DAO Community: Bong Bears NFT

Berachain's journey began with the Bong Bears NFT project. Interestingly, this project originated in the off-topic channel of Olympus DAO's Discord, which was a leading DeFi 2.0 project at the time.

The direct catalyst for the Bong Bears NFT project was the debate surrounding Olympus DAO's "OIP-18: Reward rate framework and reduction" proposal. PatchoEscobar (now known as Smokey The Bera) and Papa Bear (Art Director), who opposed this proposal, began conceptualizing a special project for like-minded Ohmies (Olympus DAO members).

Bong Bears NFT launched on August 27, 2021, with 107 NFTs (100 regular Bong Bears, 6 honorary Bears, and 1 accidentally duplicated Bear) minted at 0.069420 ETH (approximately $225 at the time).

The Bong Bears NFT quickly gained traction within the Olympus DAO community. Its popularity surged when many OG users, including Zeus (Olympus DAO's CEO & co-founder), began using Bong Bears NFT as their profile pictures.

Inspired by Olympus DAO's rebase mechanism, Bong Bears NFT was designed to airdrop new NFTs to existing holders with each new series release (rebase). Starting with the initial 100 Bong Bears, the collection expanded through various series including Bond, Boo, Baby, Band, Bit, and B (TBD) Bears, with total supply increasing from 100 to 9,311 from Genesis through Epoch 7.

On October 17, 2021, the first rebase NFT, Bond Bears, was released with the announcement of Bonga Bera Pro, featuring a Bond meme concept inspired by the then-recent 007 series "No Time to Die." The next rebase NFT, Boo Bears, launched on October 29, 2021, with a Halloween theme, followed by Baby Bears on December 16, 2021, with a Christmas and holiday theme.

Each rebase NFT went beyond simple design changes, incorporating special stories and concepts. Baby Bears, in particular, featured a hidden piece revealing them as baby versions of previous NFT series, which sparked a collecting culture among enthusiasts seeking to complete entire series.

Throughout this community-centered development, the Berachain team was preparing for the next phase with a vision to build an independent blockchain ecosystem beyond the NFT project.

On November 28, 2021, Dev Bear (now bearmo) first mentioned "Bera chain" in the Bong Bears Discord, subtly announcing plans to create a new blockchain from the NFT project.

On March 14, 2022, DevBear posted a proposal on the Olympus DAO forum requesting seed investment in Berachain. The proposal suggested exchanging 2% of the total supply for $500K in OHM, valuing Berachain at $50M. The proposal, OIP-87, passed with 78% approval four days later.

2. Berachain's Community-Focused Growth Strategy

2.1. Early Community Formation Through Meme Culture & Community Activation via Rebase NFTs

Berachain caught attention in the crypto market with its unique approach. While other projects emphasized technical excellence or business value, Berachain led with witty meme culture.

From the start, Berachain created various memes like "Berachain fixes this," "Berachain isn't real," "fake Chain," "Henlo," and "Ooga Booga," which naturally spread and helped establish Berachain's unique brand identity in the crypto community.

Berachain began building its community in earnest with the public launch of its Discord channel on April 3, 2022. Notably, they released the fourth rebase NFT, Band Bears, on April 20, providing new community members with an incentive to participate.

In this way, Berachain strategically leveraged meme culture to promote the project and strengthen its community, which resulted in more and more people becoming interested in and immersing themselves in the Bong Bears NFT and Berachain culture.

2.2. Active Communication Strategy

The Berachain team prioritized community communication from the beginning.

From early development, they conducted AMAs and Spaces with various partners to promote Berachain and address community questions.

Starting July 2022, Berachain began hosting special community events beyond simple online communication. They organized events like Rap Night and Poker Night on Discord, fostering bonds between community members and creating a unique culture. Even now, various Berachain ecosystem projects host poker events with special prizes.

From August 2022, they began appearing on major crypto podcasts and actively marketing through various social media channels like Twitter and Discord.

They actively engaged with the community through content that emphasized team members' unique characters and utilized memes and humor, while also launching Bit Bears NFT as a surprise reward for existing holders during this period. These strategic marketing and community-centric activities significantly contributed to raising awareness of Berachain.

While building a consistent brand identity centered around bear characters and meme culture, Berachain maintained a balance between approachability and professionalism. They encouraged active community participation through various events and rewards, continuously gathered and incorporated member feedback, and maintained anticipation and mystique through strategic and phased information releases. These community-centric strategies played a crucial role in Berachain's growth from a simple blockchain project into an ecosystem with a strong community culture.

3. Explosive Growth and Global Expansion

3.1. Major Investment Rounds and Technical Advancement

Berachain's true leap forward began with the announcement of a $42 million private round investment led by Polychain Capital on April 21, 2023. This marked Berachain's recognition as a serious Layer 1 blockchain project beyond a community project.

n January 2024, Berachain revealed its first public testnet "Artio," demonstrating its technical substance. They also held their first offline event at ETH Denver on January 31, showing evolution from an 'online meme' to a 'real project.'

In April 2024, Berachain successfully secured a $100 million Series B investment led by BREVAN HOWARD DIGITAL and FRAMEWORK. This signified global investors' recognition of Berachain's value and potential, and marked a turning point after which interest in the project began to increase explosively.

In June, they announced their second public testnet "bAtrio V2," further enhancing technical completeness. While the community expected mainnet launch in Q4 2024, this later gave birth to the 'Q5' meme.

3.2. Global Education and Expansion

Berachain began actively working to increase technical understanding of the project. They held 'Beracademy' at EthCC in July 2024, providing systematic education to developers and users, and focused on creating educational content to lower entry barriers.

3.3. Asian Market Strategy

In late 2024, Berachain actively targeted the Asian market, starting with participation in Korea Blockchain Week (KBW) in September and touring major Asian cities including Vietnam and Bangkok.

In Korea, the response was particularly strong, leading to the formation of a new community called 'Korean Beras' during Berachain's Asia tour.

Berachain's influence expanded through strategic partnerships with major Web3 platforms. Collaboration with Binance Wallet provided accessibility to a broader user base and led to expectations of Binance listing. Additionally, announcements of collaborations from influential Web3 projects like Kaito's Berachain Yapper leaderboard launch and Magic Eden's Berachain support further heightened expectations for the Berachain ecosystem.

4. The Vast Berachain Ecosystem

In October 2024, Messari reported that over 270 ecosystem dApps were built on Berachain's testnet, an unprecedented achievement for any blockchain at the testnet stage.

To accelerate this explosive ecosystem growth, the Berachain Foundation introduced the Broposal program in October 2024, allowing dApps and communities to provide BERA incentives to users.

The Broposal program encouraged users to experience various dApps in the testnet environment while providing developers with opportunities to receive real user feedback. This program continues through to mainnet, helping maintain user participation and attract new users after mainnet launch.

The synergy between Berachain's vast ecosystem and strong community was particularly evident in the '69hrs of Beramas' event. This Christmas season event provided a special opportunity for various Berachain ecosystem projects and community members to celebrate and promote each other, effectively showcasing the ecosystem's diversity and vitality through unique celebrations over 69 hours.

5. Securing Massive Liquidity through Boyco

Boyco is an incentive-based liquidity market program based on the Royco protocol, designed to help Berachain dApps secure liquidity from launch through negotiations with liquidity providers across various mainnets pre-launch.

5.1. Explosive Success of Pre-Boyco

On December 29, 2024, Berachain launched Pre-Boyco with key partners including Lombard and Stake Stone, attracting an impressive $3B in liquidity. This unprecedented achievement at the testnet stage reflected high market expectations for the Berachain ecosystem.

On January 21, 2025, Berachain successfully launched the official Boyco program, marking another milestone following Pre-Boyco's success and signaling the approaching mainnet launch. The community heightened expectations for mainnet launch with the 'Q5' meme.

6. Real Q5, Mainnet Launch

On February 4, 2025, Berachain unveiled its new whitepaper, the Honeypaper, sharing detailed technical vision and roadmap for the project. The following day, they released the highly anticipated airdrop checker and revealed the previously private tokenomics, clearly outlining the project's economic structure and reward system. With this, Berachain had unveiled all the core elements they had been preparing for so long, and the community was left waiting only for the imminent mainnet announcement.

On February 6, 2025, Berachain finally launched its mainnet, transforming the long-running 'Fake Chain' meme into a 'Real Chain.' The PoL (Proof of Liquidity) mechanism revealed with mainnet is expected to accelerate ecosystem growth, with over 270 dApps verified on testnet ready for implementation. The unique community formed through memes and humor is expected to grow with even stronger bonds after mainnet.