Recently, Berachain's performance has indeed been intriguing. On January 14th, the BERA token price jumped from $0.5 directly to $0.9, which was a surprise in a trend that had previously experienced 12 consecutive declines. On the same day, the foundation released its year-end summary, discussing a lot of achievements in ecosystem expansion and technical optimization, but the tone also reflected the pressure brought by market volatility.

Honestly, during this period since the Berachain mainnet launched, both the token price and TVL haven't looked very promising. Behind this, it might not just be a market cycle issue, but more a result of internal strategies colliding with external pressures.

When the mainnet officially went live last February, Berachain introduced the PoL consensus mechanism—proof of liquidity, which is quite a novel setup. We've seen PoS quite a lot, but here they use proof of liquidity to incentivize application and user participation, aiming to create a Layer 1 chain specifically designed for DeFi. The logic sounds clear: higher capital efficiency, better user adoption.

The initial ecosystem expansion indeed did not disappoint. Hundreds of dApps flooded in, including DEXs, lending protocols, and NFT marketplaces. DEXs like BEX became the main players in the ecosystem. The data from that period was quite impressive—TVL once surged to $3.3 billion, with over 140,000 active addresses. If this momentum continued, it seemed possible to create a differentiated public chain.

But now? TVL has dropped to $1.8 billion. This decline can't be simply explained by "market correction." The 24-hour on-chain revenue is only $84, which indicates what? It shows that the actual activity and value generated by the ecosystem are not as optimistic as the data suggests.

This kind of drop from high to low usually reflects three issues: first, the initial attraction may have been more driven by hype rather than actual demand; second, whether the PoL mechanism can truly incentivize sustainable ecosystem development remains to be seen; third, in the competition with other Layer 1 chains, Berachain's differentiated advantages still need more time to be validated.

However, from another perspective, large fluctuations are also common in the development of new public chains. The key is whether the foundation can retain users and enhance value creation through genuine product iterations and ecosystem improvements. Otherwise, even if the token price rises again, it will only be a fleeting reflection.