Berachain’s rewards have come in three separate waves, and people mix them up all the time. First came the genesis BERA airdrop at mainnet launch in February 2025. Then came Boyco, the pre-deposit program whose locks ran out in the spring of 2025. Finally there is Proof of Liquidity, the chain’s ongoing incentive system, which was rebuilt in 2026 to retire BGT. If someone sends you a “Berachain claim” link, the first question is which of these three it claims to be. Two of them are finished, and the third does not work by claim links at all.
What Berachain is
Berachain is an EVM-compatible layer 1 that launched mainnet on 6 February 2025. It began as the Bong Bears NFT community. Its defining feature is Proof of Liquidity (PoL): block emissions do not go only to validators. Validators direct them to Reward Vaults, where users who supply liquidity to approved applications earn them. Protocols then pay validators incentives to send emissions to their vaults. The chain has three main tokens: BERA for gas and staking, HONEY as the native stablecoin, and, until 2026, BGT, the non-transferable governance and reward token.
The official site is berachain.com, with technical documentation at docs.berachain.com. Most user actions, including staking BERA, depositing into Reward Vaults and claiming rewards, happen in the Berachain Hub.
Wave one: the genesis BERA airdrop (closed)
The launch airdrop gave out 15.75% of the initial BERA supply, around 79 million BERA. The largest share, 34.5 million BERA, went to holders of Bong Bears and its “rebase” NFT collections (Bond, Boo, Baby, Band and Bit Bears) who bridged them to Berachain. Testnet users of Artio and bArtio received 8.25 million BERA. Other portions went to community members, social and “Request for Broposal” participants, ecosystem NFT holders and a Binance promotion. Claims opened on 6 February 2025, and social and RFB recipients could claim from 10 February. That airdrop is over. No later “phase two” of the genesis drop has been announced.
Wave two: Boyco pre-deposits (unlocked)
Boyco was Berachain’s pre-launch liquidity program, built with Royco. Before mainnet, users deposited assets into markets for specific Berachain applications. Their capital was locked for a set period after launch, either 30 or 90 days depending on the market. In return they earned BERA from the foundation plus each application’s own incentives. When the locks ended, depositors received BERA and LP or receipt tokens on Berachain.
Claims split into two parts, and this is where people still lose track:
- Boyco BERA was claimed through the official Boyco dashboard at boyco.berachain.com, or on StakeStone’s platform for StakeStone vault depositors.
- Application tokens and the deposits themselves had to be claimed or withdrawn from each participating protocol. Some pre-deposit vaults, including StakeStone and ether.fi routes, did not appear in the Berachain checker at all and had to be handled in the partner’s own interface.
If you took part in Boyco and something seems missing, check the partner protocol first. Do not look for a “Boyco recovery” service.
Wave three: Proof of Liquidity after the 2026 overhaul
For its first year, PoL ran on BGT. Users earned BGT in Reward Vaults, delegated it to validators to “boost” them, and could burn it one-to-one for BERA. BERA staking went live in the Hub in July 2025, letting plain BERA holders earn yield too. The PoL Next upgrade, deployed on mainnet in mid-2026 just ahead of the Fusaka hard fork, changed the model in several ways:
- Emissions are now paid in WBERA, at fixed per-block rates, and boost mechanics have been removed.
- BGT no longer affects rewards or governance. Leftover BGT converts to WBERA on your next claim. Holders can also redeem BGT directly or migrate it through the Hub.
- Value from incentives now flows to sWBERA, the staked-BERA position, which gets a pro-rata on-chain claim on the WBERA paid out through the incentive auction.
- Existing Reward Vaults kept running with no migration needed. Rewards build up in WBERA and can be claimed as either BERA or sWBERA.
Alongside the upgrade, Berachain has moved away from Boyco-style liquidity mining toward what it calls “Bera Builds Businesses”, which means directing emissions to applications that can show real revenue. In practice, the ongoing reward for using Berachain is now a stream of WBERA from specific vaults, not a future airdrop.
How to verify and claim Berachain rewards today
- Start from berachain.com. Open the Hub through the official site rather than a search ad or a link in a reply.
- Check your Reward Vault positions. In the Hub, each vault shows your staked LP or receipt token and the WBERA built up. Claim as BERA or sWBERA, and note which you chose.
- Convert any BGT. If your wallet still has BGT from before the upgrade, use the Hub’s migration or redemption flow, or simply make a claim, which converts what is left.
- Stake BERA if you want the base yield. The staking section of the Hub mints the staked position that now receives incentive-auction revenue.
- Close out Boyco leftovers at the source. For old Boyco positions, check boyco.berachain.com and the specific partner protocol (StakeStone, ether.fi, the DEX or lending app you deposited into) for any remaining receipt tokens.
- Keep a record of the vault address and transaction hash for every claim. With rewards now in WBERA, the BERA/sWBERA choice affects your tax and accounting records.
Risks that are specific to Berachain
- Emission-driven yields can fade. Reward Vault APRs depend on WBERA emissions and on how much each protocol spends in incentive auctions. When BERA’s price or a protocol’s incentive budget falls, the yield falls with it. By mid-2026 market coverage put Berachain’s DeFi TVL at a small fraction of its post-launch peak.
- Token unlocks. Investor and core-contributor BERA had a one-year cliff from launch, so supply rose sharply after February 2026. Reward tokens you plan to sell compete with that supply.
- Application risk inside vaults. A Reward Vault only pays emissions. The real risk is in the underlying LP or lending position: impermanent loss, a stablecoin or LST depeg, or a contract bug in the application.
- Protocol changes. PoL has been redesigned once already, and a strategy built around BGT boosting stopped working overnight. Read the PoL changelog in the docs before making long-term plans.
- Bridged assets. Many Berachain assets arrived through bridges and cross-chain deposit routes, which add their own failure points.
How to spot fake Berachain claim pages
Official Berachain properties use berachain.com and its subdomains: hub, docs, blog and boyco. The official X account is @berachain. Common scams include “BGT to BERA converter” sites on other domains, “Boyco unclaimed rewards” checkers, and “Bera airdrop season 2” pages. None of these have been announced. Pages built on the bear brand, using names like “bera-claim” or “berachainhub”, appear regularly. A real Hub claim calls the Reward Vault or staking contract. It never asks you to approve unrelated tokens or sign an off-chain permit for your whole balance.
FAQ
Can I still claim the genesis BERA airdrop?
The genesis airdrop opened in February 2025. Berachain has not announced any later phase. Treat any new “genesis claim” page as fake.
What happened to my BGT?
After PoL Next, BGT no longer drives rewards or governance. Remaining balances convert to WBERA on your next claim, or you can redeem or migrate them in the Hub.
Where were Boyco rewards claimed?
Boyco BERA was claimed on boyco.berachain.com, or on StakeStone for its vaults. Partner tokens and deposits were claimed in each partner’s app.
Is there a new Berachain airdrop coming?
At the time of writing, no. Ongoing rewards come from Reward Vault emissions and BERA staking.
Verdict
Berachain no longer has a pending airdrop to farm. It has a live, recently simplified reward system that pays WBERA for supplying liquidity to approved vaults and sends incentive revenue to staked BERA. Check old claims (genesis, Boyco) once, at their official sources, and then put them behind you. For anything new, the Hub and the PoL changelog are the only references that count.
For information only, not financial advice. Emission-based yields change constantly and DeFi positions can lose value.
Related guides
- Succinct in 2026: The PROVE Airdrop Is Over, and How Prover Staking and Delegation Really Work
- Pharos in 2026: Pacific Ocean Mainnet and PROS Are Live, How the Airdrop Worked, and the Claim Deadline
- Sonic Rewards 2026: How to Track Gems, DeFi Activity, and Claim Safety
- Aptos Rewards 2026: How to Track Ecosystem Activity and Avoid Fake Airdrop Claims
