Berachain Goes Live, $BERA Hits $1B

Taproot Wizards’ $30M Series A | MicroStrategy Rebrand & $12.75B Bitcoin Boost

Marco Manoppo & Karon Pangestu
February 07, 2025

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Good Morning.

Trump-backed World Liberty Financial is gearing up to form a “strategic reserve” with its token buys—a move that echoes the former president’s own crypto ambitions. On another front, Berachain’s mainnet is now live, and its BERA token has already hit a $1B market cap after attracting a whopping $3.1B in pre-deposited liquidity.

In Today's Email:

What Matters: Berachain Mainnet Goes Live, $BERA Hits $1B Market Cap 🐻
Founders Highlight: Hyunsub Choi & Ethan Chae of Hippocrat 👨
Deal Flow: Taproot Wizards’ $30M Series A 🪄

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Narratives: Continued BTC strength

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WHAT MATTERS

Berachain Mainnet Goes Live, $BERA Hits $1B Market Cap

Berachain is finally real.
— Berachain Foundation 🐻⛓ (@berachain)
12:56 PM • Feb 6, 2025

State of play: Berachain has officially launched its mainnet and BERA token, now boasting a $1B market cap after amassing $3.1B in pre-deposited liquidity.

The network employs a novel “proof-of-liquidity” (PoL) consensus mechanism that splits its native token into two parts:

BERA: Used for gas fees and as a staking bond for validators.
BGT: A non-transferable, inflationary governance token that validators distribute to reward dapps and liquidity providers. Although non-transferable, BGT can be burned 1:1 for BERA, linking its value directly to the market.
This dual-token model creates a direct relationship between validators and liquidity providers, incentivizing early participation.
Validators wield significant power by directing future BGT emissions to favored dapps, which gives early users a lasting advantage in the ecosystem.
Additionally, Berachain distinguishes itself by launching with native application, including an AMM DEX (BEX), a money market (Bend), and a perps DEX (Berps) rather than relying on third-party developers.

What’s next: Given that Berachain is a highly community-driven project, the team must proactively address concerns surrounding the airdrop allocation and overall tokenomics.

For builders and investors: The ability to convert governance tokens directly into market-valued assets ties token performance closely to network growth, presenting both a compelling upside and a nuanced risk profile.

BUILDER-INVESTOR HIGHLIGHT

Hyunsub Choi & Ethan Chae of Hippocrat

Intro: Hyunsub and Ethan are the founders of Hippocrat, a Healthcare Data Protocol that transforms healthcare data collection and utilization by leveraging blockchain technology and zero-knowledge proofs

Previous background: Hyunsub is an IT professional with a BA in computer science and an MS in technology management (AI), co-founded Humanscape, now valued at $70M and developed healthcare services like Mommytalk and Rarenote.

Ethan Chae is a serial entrepreneur with multiple exits and holds a BA in Economics from UChicago. He founded startups across fashion, eCommerce, IT, and blockchain and was the youngest publicly listed company CEO in Korea.

The big idea: Hyunsub and Ethan saw a major problem in the traditional system: patients couldn't benefit from their healthcare data.

Data stored across various medical institutions, healthcare providers, and EMR solutions remained fragmented, unable to connect or interchange across different sources.
Regulations added more barriers, creating "data silos" that prevented individuals from accessing and using their own data for continuous and personalized care.
To fix this, they turned to blockchain. Hippocrat’s data protocol facilitates seamless, automated data transfer while recording data consent history and transaction on-chain, empowering over 4M users onboarding through institutional partnership to own, control, and monetize their health data.

Take a peek at our referral reward at the bottom of this issue. Share this newsletter and receive our list of 500 crypto VC individuals 👇

INSIGHTS

MicroStrategy Rebrand & $12.75B Bitcoin Boost

State of play: Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) is set to receive a $12.75B boost to its balance sheet after adopting FASB’s new fair value accounting rules, which allow the company to mark its Bitcoin holdings to market value and recognize unrealized gains.

The rebranding signals a shift from a software business to a Bitcoin treasury company.
Despite reporting a Q4 net loss of $670.8M and incurring over $1B in impairment losses on Bitcoin, this adjustment will add significantly to its retained earnings.
Strategy reported a year-to-date BTC Yield of 74.3% and holding 471,107 BTC (~$46B).
Strategy’s "21/21" plan aimed to raise $21B in equity and $21B in debt by 2027. In three months, it secured roughly $20B. $16.7B in equity, $3B in convertibles, and $600M in preferred stock.
According to Bernstein, Strategy targets a long-term leverage ratio of 20–30%, but currently sits at around 15% due to $6.2B in convertible debt maturing in 2028.

DEAL FLOWS

Taproot Wizards’ $30M Series A

Deal flows slowed down this week - we saw $90M in deals 💼

Bitcoin Ordinals project Taproot Wizards has raised $30M in a Series A round, led by Standard Crypto with participation from Cyberfund and Collider Ventures.

The funds will boost development of the OP_CAT ecosystem.
OP_CAT is a simple, 10-line scripting capability aimed at enabling automated, customizable transactions on Bitcoin.
The project seeks to expand Bitcoin's usability beyond digital gold.

Deal flows in the past week:

Herd, $1.8M Pre-Seed Round
Henlo. $3M Seed Round
Beamable, $13.5M Series A Round
Reservoir, $14M Series A Round
Taproot Wizards, $30M Series A Round
Corn, $1.5M Public Token Sale
Anoma, $2.5M Community Round
GOAT Gaming, $4M Strategic Round
VitalVEDA, $20M Strategic Round

QUICK BITES

Polymarket hits 450,000 active traders.
SEC advances Grayscale's Solana ETF proposal.
Crypto exchange Gemini considers a 2025 IPO.
MicroStrategy to get a $12.75B boost to its balance sheet.
World Liberty Financial aims to form 'strategic' token reserve.
Cboe BZX Exchange files 19b-4 to list and trade spot XRP ETFs.
Czech president signs law exempting capital gains taxes on crypto.
Crypto debanking sparks tension in House subcommittee hearing.
Tornado Cash dev Alexey Pertsev gets nod for conditional release.
Nobel-winning economist predicts Bitcoin's demise within a decade.

NOTEWORTHY READS

Rekt Capital’s read on Bitcoin Dominance.
SlinTeron’s read on Ultimate Software Table in Notion.
Karak’s read on The Operating System for Digital Nation States.

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Disclaimer: All the information presented in this publication and its affiliates is strictly for educational purposes only. It should not be construed or taken as financial, legal, investment, or any other form of advice.