Exploring Berachain V2: Revolutionizing Node Staking and Slashing Mechanisms

Original title: "Berachain V2: What's New?"

Author: Infrared Finance

Compiled by TechFlow

In January this year, the Artio testnet of Berachain went live, and since then, the ecosystem has been steadily rising. Developers, users, and validator operators have participated in the testing, helping to stress test the network and guide Berachain's design decisions. The V1 testnet validated core concepts such as liquidity proof, but also identified areas for improvement, which is where V2 comes in. We will do our best to summarize the latest achievements of Berachain's core developers.

Brief explanation

• The verification node now requires staking 69,420 BERA instead of BGT to enhance economic security.
• BGT entrusters will no longer be reduced.
• All validation nodes have an equal chance to produce blocks.
• The maximum number of verification nodes has been increased to improve decentralization.
• The core technology stack has been changed from Polaris to BeaconKit to improve performance and EVM compatibility.
• The public deployment of the Infrared test network is about to be launched.

New changes in V2

Changes in BERA Staking and Reduction

One key economic change in V2 is the introduction of larger validation node margin, that is, the amount of tokens staked in BERA. Simply put, validation node margin is the amount of tokens that validation nodes must stake when they start producing blocks.

In V2, the verification node margin has increased from a small amount of BGT to 69,420 BERA. This ensures that verification nodes have higher economic incentives to improve the security of the network by increasing the cost of potential attacks. This change means that verification nodes bear more responsibility while increasing the utility of BERA without affecting the role of BGT in liquidity proof.

The changes in BERA stake also affect the reduction of validator nodes, which is a punishment for improper behavior or poor performance of validator nodes. If the validator nodes are reduced, a portion of the staked tokens will be deducted, which is an undesirable outcome.

In V1, slashing may affect both the verification nodes and BGT delegators. In V2, only the BERA staking of verification nodes will be slashed. This protects BGT delegators and places more responsibility on verification nodes, ensuring users and protocols can participate in liquidity proof with their BGT more confidently.

More Fair Block Production

In V1, the opportunity for validating nodes to produce new blocks increases with the increase in the amount of BGT delegated to them. In V2, block production has been improved, and all validating nodes now have an equal chance to produce new blocks. The block reward will increase proportionally based on their delegated BGT. This ensures a fairer distribution of rewards, encourages more validating nodes to join the network, and still maintains the importance of BGT delegation.

Maximum Number of Validation Nodes

The maximum number of validation nodes has been increased from 100 to 128, and may increase further in the future. As we all know, increasing the upper limit of validation nodes can improve decentralization and network security. Decentralization is important!

Architecture Upgrade

Finally, Berachain V2 migrated from the Polaris architecture to BeaconKit, which will improve network performance. BeaconKit allows the use of any Ethereum execution client, such as Reth, Geth, or Nethermind, making Berachain fully compatible with EVM. This upgrade addresses the bottlenecks encountered in V1, ensuring smoother transaction processing. If you want to learn more, please read Dev Bear's technical blog on the topic.

The impact of these changes on Infrared

The changes introduced by V2 are an important step forward for the network. Berachain V2 will provide a better experience for users, developers, and verification nodes, benefiting the entire ecosystem.

BGT turns to a purely economic role, enhances the ecosystem built around iBGT by clarifying the value proposition of BGT. We have seen many protocols adopt iBGT to build their flywheels and expect this trend to continue with the improved design of BGT.

Regarding the BERA stake of the verification node, we are planning some exciting things and will soon share them with everyone.

What's next?

We are working hard to complete the deployment of the new and public Infrared Testnet and hope to launch it soon for users and partners to use.