Staking Pools enable validators to offer liquid staking services to their communities. As a validator, you can build and monetize your own community of stakers, earning commission on rewards. Your stakers deposit BERA through smart contracts and receive liquid shares (stBERA) that automatically grow in value as rewards accumulate.Documentation Index
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What are staking pools?
Staking Pools are validator-operated services that allow your community members to stake BERA through smart contracts, receiving liquid shares (stBERA) that represent their stake and automatically grow in value as rewards accumulate. Stakers can stake any amount without running their own validator. As a validator, staking pools provide you with a way to build and monetize your own community of stakers, earning commission on rewards. Your stakers benefit from lower barriers to entry, automatic reward reinvestment, and flexible withdrawals.Post-BGT Deprecation
The May 2026 Proof of Liquidity upgrade changes how staking pools earn and how stakers receive rewards. The contract surface and pool operations stay broadly the same.- Reward emissions are paid in $WBERA. Validator emissions accrue as $WBERA on the
SmartOperator. Operator monitoring views and the automatic flows that compound this WBERA into pool assets and into withdrawal coverage are documented in the Operator Guide. - Per-block emission is a flat fixed rate (no boost curve). The pre-upgrade boost curve, which made BGT delegation a yield differentiator, is gone. Per-block emission no longer scales with delegation. Pools compete on reward allocation strategy, attracted incentives, and commission rate rather than boost.
- BGT is deprecated. We recommend unboosting and burning the BGT held by your
SmartOperator. The BGT-era entry points stay callable but become inert once chargeable BGT is exhausted; see Deprecated BGT entry points. - Withdrawals can be covered from operator-side WBERA. The shared
WithdrawalVaultmay pull fromavailableWBERABalance()on yourSmartOperator, unwrap to native BERA, and apply that toward an outstanding request — fully, partially, or not at all when liquidity is insufficient. The standard consensus-layer withdrawal path remains for any uncovered remainder.
How it works
When you create a staking pool, the system deploys several interconnected contracts. Your pool includes a StakingPool contract that manages deposits and shares, a SmartOperator that handles validator operations and Proof of Liquidity integration, and a StakingRewardsVault that collects and reinvests rewards. Shared infrastructure includes a WithdrawalVault that processes withdrawal requests for all pools and an Accounting Oracle that provides consensus layer data updates. The system automates staking, reward distribution, and withdrawal management, requiring minimal manual intervention from you while providing your stakers with a seamless staking experience.Contract architecture
The staking pools system uses a factory pattern where the StakingPoolContractsFactory serves as the deployment mechanism, creating and managing the complete suite of contracts needed for each validator’s staking pool. The core functionality revolves around the StakingPool contract, which handles staker deposits, share management, and the fundamental operations of your staking pool. Stakers interact with this contract to stake their BERA tokens and receive stBERA shares in return. The StakingPool contract maintains the accounting for staker positions and manages the conversion between BERA and stBERA shares. Validator operations are coordinated through the SmartOperator contract, which manages integration with Berachain’s Proof of Liquidity system. This contract handles reward allocation, commission management, and validator-specific PoL operations. The StakingPool contract inherits from the stBERA base contract, which provides the core token functionality for staked BERA shares, including share minting, burning, and conversion between assets and shares.Security model
The staking pools system implements a security model designed to protect staker funds while maintaining operational flexibility for validators and administrators. Access control is managed through a role-based system that provides granular permissions for different types of operations. TheDEFAULT_ADMIN_ROLE provides governance control over contract upgrades and emergency actions. Validators receive the VALIDATOR_ADMIN_ROLE, which grants them operational control over their specific staking pool while preventing interference with other validators’ operations.
Specialized roles handle specific aspects of the system. The REWARDS_ALLOCATION_MANAGER_ROLE manages reward allocation to specific applications, while the COMMISSION_MANAGER_ROLE handles validator commission management. The PROTOCOL_FEE_MANAGER_ROLE controls protocol fee settings, and the INCENTIVE_COLLECTOR_MANAGER_ROLE manages incentive collector operations.
Emergency controls provide additional protection. Contracts can be paused in emergency situations. The system includes automatic full exit triggers that activate if the minimum balance threshold is breached, protecting stakers from potential losses.
Staker experience
When stakers interact with your staking pool, they deposit BERA and immediately receive liquid stBERA shares. Rewards automatically compound as you earn rewards, increasing the value of shares over time without manual claiming or reinvestment. Stakers can withdraw at any time. Withdrawal liquidity can come from the consensus layer, from buffered funds on the pool before activation, and — after PoL Next on the staking-pools stack — from WBERA held on your pool’sSmartOperator, which the shared WithdrawalVault may use to help satisfy requests (including partial coverage, with any remainder still exiting via the consensus layer). Finalizing a withdrawal request remains subject to the on-chain delay from the request block (commonly on the order of three days / 129,600 blocks at ~2s block time); see the Operator Guide for operator responsibilities and how coverage is sourced. Stakers can stake any amount without validator minimums, with full transparency through on-chain verification.
Staking pool shares (stBERA) are not LSTs. They cannot be registered with
BGTIncentiveFeeCollector as an LSTStakerVault asset and cannot be deposited into the $sWBERA
Staking Vault. Pool-level yield reaches stBERA holders through the pool’s own SmartOperator and
IncentiveCollector — a separate path from the PoL Incentive Auction yield.Validator operations
You deploy a staking pool through the factory contract, which creates all necessary contracts and registers your validator with the consensus layer. You configure commission rates (up to 20% of staker rewards) and can direct Proof of Liquidity incentives to specific applications. Commission is collected automatically on staker rewards, allowing you to focus on community building rather than manual reward management.Integration with Proof of Liquidity
Staking pools integrate with Berachain’s Proof of Liquidity system. Pool reward flows route validator emissions to configured vault paths, and smart contracts claim and distribute PoL incentives. You can direct rewards to specific applications or ecosystem initiatives.Provided tools
Berachain provides tools to help you operate your staking pool. A React-based example frontend template provides a starting point for building your staking interface. The template demonstrates how stakers can connect wallets, deposit BERA, view positions, and request withdrawals. See the Building your front-end section in the operator guide for requirements and template usage. Bash scripts automate deployment and management operations, generating ready-to-reviewcast commands for safe execution. An interactive Python CLI tool is available for managing SmartOperator contracts. These tools are available in the Berachain guides repository, with detailed documentation in the install-helpers README.