Berachain Retires BGT, Migrates to sWBERA Ahead of July 8 PoL Next Fork

Berachain will execute a hard fork on July 8 at 16:00 UTC that retires its original Proof-of-Liquidity (PoL) framework and replaces it with a redesigned system called PoL Next, according to the Berachain Foundation. The upgrade collapses the network’s three-token model — BERA, BGT and HONEY — toward a single-token economy centered on BERA, and the foundation is dangling yields of up to 3x APR for participants who migrate.

For traders and validators tracking Berachain’s reward mechanics, the fork is the most consequential protocol change since mainnet launch. It doesn’t just tweak emissions — it eliminates BGT as a standalone governance-and-rewards asset, which had been the core differentiator of Berachain’s liquidity-incentive design since inception.

Manual migration required, no auto-conversion

Holders of BGT and BGT liquid staking tokens (LSTs) must manually convert their positions to sWBERA using official tools inside the Berachain Hub. The foundation is not applying an automatic swap, meaning wallets that sit idle through the fork window carry migration risk — a detail on-chain researchers will want to flag given how often manual-conversion events produce stranded balances or third-party phishing tools mimicking official migration UIs.

The shift effectively sunsets BGT’s role as the network’s emissions-and-governance token. Under the legacy PoL model, BGT accrued to validators and delegators based on liquidity provisioning, then converted into governance weight and reward multipliers across Berachain’s DeFi stack. PoL Next folds that function back into BERA and its liquid-staked derivative, simplifying the token flow that liquidity providers and validators had to track.

Why the single-token model matters for yield mechanics

Consolidating BERA, BGT and HONEY exposure into a BERA-centric structure removes a layer of token conversion friction that previously sat between liquidity providers and their realized yield. The Berachain Foundation is framing this as the mechanism behind the promised APR uplift — up to 3x versus current levels — though the exact reward curve and how it scales with validator participation has not been detailed beyond the foundation’s own announcement.

For active LPs and validators, the practical question ahead of July 8 is timing: converting BGT and BGT LSTs to sWBERA before the fork versus holding through it carries different exposure to potential liquidity gaps during the transition window. Traders positioning around the fork will also want to watch whether third-party protocols built on top of BGT — lending markets, LST wrappers, governance-weighted vaults — announce their own migration timelines, since those integrations don’t automatically inherit the foundation’s sWBERA conversion path.

What to watch into July 8

Key data points for on-chain observers ahead of the fork include the pace of BGT-to-sWBERA conversions through the Berachain Hub, any divergence between BGT’s market price and its underlying redemption value as the token approaches deprecation, and validator set behavior as reward mechanics shift. The foundation has not published a post-fork BGT redemption deadline in the material reviewed, so holders sitting on unconverted balances should treat the July 8 cutoff as the operative reference point.