BeraTrax Testnet: BGT Flywheel Activated

8 min readJan 23, 2025

After a resoundingly successful beta, our testnet is live at https://testnet.beratrax.com! We were floored by over 7,000 beta users that did nearly 100k transactions (made possible due to how many transactions BeraTrax bundles for you in every click), and stress testing our protocol with over $50 million in TVL. Your beta input has been implemented, and now, our testnet is opening for all, and opening the door for BGT earning, and our brand new BGT flywheel that will ensure not only simpler, but exponentially higher, earnings than you can get anywhere else.

The BeraTrax BGT flywheel is designed to ensure that users of BeraTrax have the option to not only earn BGT, but abstract away PoL participation so that our one-click deposit will also lead to them earning BGT rewards as well as downstream rewards from validators. The flywheel uses funds earned on the platform as bribes toward one single vault per earning period, which is set to one week for this current model.

The TL;DR of the model: All fees from the protocol are used to bribe validators to earn BGT, which goes to one winning vault selected by BTX holders. A user can earn BGT directly, or better yet, they can opt in to earning iBGT, which is automatically put to work for them the entire time they are deposited in the vault. They will continue to earn a boosted yield even after BGT emissions for that vault have ended because their iBGT will be earning rewards from validators for them.

Here is an overview

There are some key points to understand about BGT and reward vaults to understand this model.

BGT is a soul-bound token that can only earned by bribing special vaults called “Reward Vaults.” BeraTrax will have every vault it offers be a reward vault that can potentially earn BGT. BGT is at least worth as much as BERA (since it can be burned for it), but offers a lot more value as it can be delegated to continuously earn rewards from validators.
Only Reward Vaults that are actively bribed by BeraTrax can earn BGT. All fees in the BeraTrax protocol exist to make these bribes & ultimately come back to the user in much higher amounts than the actual fees paid.
Although every vault will be a reward vault, only one vault will be earning at a time, with BTX holders deciding which vault will be earning BGT rewards at any given time.

There are two workflows in this model. The V1 with just BGT earning going live tomorrow, and the upcoming V2 that will automate PoL participation entirely.

V1: Simplified BGT Earning

Any user asset → zapped into user’s vault of choice → their LP receipt token is deposited into the BGT Reward Vault for this vault → the vault wins BTX voting → BGT is earned → User can claim it as it’s earned from their dashboard.

This is how the diagram for this looks, assuming a vault that is built on a HONEY-WBERA vault on Kodiak:

Here is the step-by-step breakdown:

A user comes to the platform to deposit into the WBERA-HONEY BeraTrax vault on top of Kodiak.
BeraTrax takes any token and then automates the swaps and contract interactions to create the LP to deposit into the vault, and also auto-compounds any rewards in the vault into the same position, providing users with a higher APY.
Fees on deposits and APY from this vault and all others are pooled into a treasury. Note that these fees only exist for this flywheel so they directly go back to users as BGT (or a lot more in the V2 flywheel).
Depositors LP receipt tokens are auto-deposited into the reward vault for this Kodiak vault. Every vault on BeraTrax will have a reward vault that users will be automatically be deposited into, remove the need to opt into earning your BGT manually.
Every week, BTX holders will select the next vault to receive BGT rewards from all collective fees. In this example, we assume our Kodiak vault won the vote.
The treasury takes all the pooled fees from all vaults for the week and bribes a validator for BGT emissions. It goes to a reward vault which exists to pay out BGT to the depositors in this vault.
The depositors of that vault are now automatically earning BGT! They can claim it as its earned on their dashboard.

V2: Automating BGT Benefits & Rewards with Infrared

BeraTrax has partnered with Infrared to use iBGT, the liquid BGT wrapper, to simplify the earning and claiming of BGT. Most importantly, iBGT can be staked as siBGT to abstract away the need to delegate to a validator for PoL rewards, while having in-built multiplier over those who stake BGT directly.

If you are unfamiliar with iBGT, all you need to know for our flywheel is that Infrared gives you a liquid version of your BGT that they can also stake on your behalf and pass rewards. Because not all iBGT will be staked, you will also take the rewards of those unstaked users, guaranteeing multiplier (albeit an unpredictable one) over delegating directly. BeraTrax with infrared automation means this entire process of wrapping, staking, and reinvesting your rewards all happens in the background with nothing required from you except your initial deposit.

This is the BeraTrax automated PoL architecture.

As before, a user comes to the platform to earn yield, but this time, also opts into the infrared automation for their rewards
The user is zapped into their vault of choice with any token they prefer.
Fees are taken out, this time, not for direct BGT earning, but to earn iBGT and its rewards from PoL participation.
The LP receipt token is given to an infrared adapter contract. The lower level of this infrastructure resembles the same auto-compounding infrastructure of the vault. The adapter then deposits the tokens on behalf of the users to be ready to earn BGT.
BTX holders will select the Kodiak vault to receive BGT rewards from all collective fees.
The treasury takes all the pooled fees from all vaults for the week and bribes a validator for BGT emissions for the reward vault of the winning vault.
BGT emissions begin. They are initially earned by the adapter on behalf of all depositors for the winning vault.
The BGT is then wrapped for iBGT, which is then passed to infrared’s iBGT contract, which earns the rewards of the BGT they delegate on your behalf. There is no bonding period, and the rewards are multiplied based on how much iBGT is not staked by others (ex: only 1/4th of all iBGT is staked, so each staked iBGT has the rewards of 4 BGT tokens).
These rewards and are earned pro-rata for every depositor in the vault. This continues even after BGT emissions ends, so the boost to the vault is now permanent for all those earned iBGT.
Upon the user withdrawing, along with all their boosted rewards, they get the rewards of the iBGT compounded in to further increase their APY. They can also choose to get their iBGT or just have it liquidated into their principle.

Gainz for BeraTrax Users

The best way to appreciate the results of this architecture is to compare the differences between this and another user who will do this same exact process manually & see what they miss out.

This comparison best captures all the value-adds of BeraTrax

Running The Numbers

Putting aside the automation and the fact that without BeraTrax you’ll end up with various tokens, let’s compare the raw rewards of our chad vs. stubborn bera if they decided to try to earn the same rewards with and without BeraTrax over a 1 week period.

Let’s take our actual WBERA-HONEY vault from beta which actually had about $5m in TVL, and assume there’s 10 similar vaults to collect fees from, which bring us to approximate real platform TVL of $50m. Here are the full set of assumptions for our example:

Let’s now apply these numbers to compare how well BeraTrax users do vs. another user in the underlying vault. We will assume the underlying vault is applying a standard 10% APY fee and using it to bribe that vault by itself vs. BeraTrax which will use fees from ten vaults to bribe the winning vault of the week.

BeraTrax users win with a 15x multiplier to their APY, while users that try to earn BGT on their The huge growth in APY is possible because BeraTrax leverages the fees of all of its vaults to bribe validators for one vault, gets them iBGT, and then puts it to work for the user the entire time they are in the vault. This continues even after the reward vault dries up, making a portion of the increased APY permanent for vault depositors.

The idea behind this flywheel is simple: Berachain rewards PoL participation, so BeraTrax has automated optimal participation with minimal effort. The pooling allows us to offer hefty bribes and incentives to different vaults on the platform, which will also ensure the users of the platform remain engaged and active to always get their share of the perpetual rewards of the platform. This is all done without us inflating APYs with the BTX token.

Testnet Incentives

Our testnet picks up where our beta left off, so users will still see their beta positions and they will continue to earn BTX points. BTX points are earned based on how much you stake, and how long you stake. Simply put: the more you stake & the longer you stake, the more you earn.

If you were a beta user, you are going to start earning tokens at 1.5x rate from testnet all the way to mainnet, including all new points you earn.

There will be a BTX testnet token coming thoon so that you can pick the vaults to give BGT. This token is just for testing and not tied to your mainnet airdrop allocation, unlike BTX points. Voting with your BGT token will add a 1.25x multiplier to your BTX points base rate every time. That means after 4 votes, you will be at 2x multiplier for points.

Referrals will go live again and still in full bonzi mode. You will get exactly the same amount of BTX points that anyone you bring in earns from using BeraTrax. All previous referrals are still active.

We will pick a vault to get BGT to kick things off until you guys can decide with BTX tokens. See you on testnet:

https://testnet.beratrax.com