Introducing iBERA: A Liquid Staking Solution for BERA
We are excited to introduce iBERA, our new liquid staking solution for BERA, made possible by the recent introduction of BERA staking in Berachain V2.
iBERA complements our existing product suite and furthers our mission to build robust infrastructure for users on top of Berachain’s Proof of Liquidity (PoL) mechanism.
Overview of BERA Staking
With Berachain V2, BERA staking has become a crucial component of the network. BERA’s role has expanded beyond a native gas token and is now used by validators to secure the network, produce blocks, and earn rewards. The economic value of all BERA tokens staked improves the security of the chain.
However, staking BERA involves “locking” up a significant amount of tokens. This requires a meaningful amount of capital and requires stakers to give up the opportunities available in the DeFi ecosystem — limiting their yield opportunities. That’s why we’re building iBERA.
iBERA Overview
iBERA is designed to address this challenge by providing a liquid staking solution for BERA. When users deposit their BERA with Infrared, it is staked with our validators, which produce rewards. In return, users receive iBERA, a liquid token backed 1:1 by BERA.
Users can hold iBERA and use it throughout DeFi to earn yield from lending, borrowing, providing liquidity, etc. while earning staking yield from Infrared’s validators.
Infrared Validators
To support both iBGT and iBERA, Infrared will be operating a full-stack protocol that includes running and managing our own validator infrastructure. This network of validators is responsible for proposing blocks, attesting to blocks, and generating block rewards. This allows us to provide users with a reliable and efficient staking experience.
Together, iBGT, iBERA, and our validator infrastructure will also enable us to introduce what we’re calling “Berachain Full Economic Nodes”… but we’ll save that for a future blog post.
What’s Next?
With mainnet on the horizon, we’re continuing to double down on our commitment to building best in class products and infrastructure on top of Proof of Liquidity.