Berachain gets flooded with $1.6B in pre-launch liquidity

This is a segment from the 0xResearch newsletter. To read full editions, subscribe.

---

As the hyped Berachain L1 gears up for a mainnet launch, an astounding $1.6 billion of liquidity has been deposited into “Boyco,” Berachain’s pre-launch liquidity platform on Ethereum. This flood of liquidity from airdrop farmers would technically make Berachain the 10th largest blockchain by TVL today.

In the past week, four Berachain Pendle pools (by Ethena and Etherfi) have already amassed a collective $515 million in TVL. This dwarves the entire TVL of its main competitor Spectra, which has shot up to $225 million since December.

Source: DefiLlama

The largest Berachain Pendle market “liquidBeraBTC” (TVL of $271 million) is accumulating points across eight (yes, you read that correctly) different protocols, and four of them aren’t even live yet. Withdrawals are also locked for 90 days on mainnet launch, but that isn’t stopping airdrop farmers. This rabid pre-launch speculation makes Pendle akin to an ICO platform used by projects to bootstrap their tokens.

Source: Pendle

The YT for liquidBeraBTC is projected to return a 1,575% APY over three months, based on @PendleIntern’s estimates, but beware the host of assumptions around projected FDV, TVL and airdrop allocations.

---

Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:

• The Breakdown: Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily.
• Empire: Crypto news and analysis to start your day.
• Forward Guidance: The intersection of crypto, macro and policy.
• 0xResearch: Alpha directly in your inbox.
• Lightspeed: All things Solana.
• The Drop: Apps, games, memes and more.
• Supply Shock: Bitcoin, bitcoin, bitcoin.