Berachain Launches PoL Next Mainnet Upgrade, Ending BGT Emissions on July 8

Berachain has launched its PoL Next mainnet upgrade, beginning a transition from the existing BGT model to a simplified incentive system centered on sWBERA. According to ChainCatcher, the migration will occur in two phases: contract changes take effect on July 7, starting distribution of WBERA as a replacement for BGT, followed by a July 8 hard fork that will fully stop BGT issuance and shut down the old mechanism. After the transition, BGT LST Reward Vaults and BGT LST incentives are expected to be deprecated over the coming days. Berachain said it will provide a migration tool on the Hub’s Portfolio page, but the migration will not be automatic. Users must manually swap BGT and BGT LSTs into sWBERA. The project noted that early APR may fluctuate and estimated it could rise to as much as three times the previous level. The hard fork is scheduled for July 8 at 16:00 UTC (12:00 PM EDT).