Berachain announces BUSD stablecoin rebrand in attempt to revive network activity

Today, 19th August, 2026, Berachain renamed its HONEY stablecoin to Bera USD ($BUSD), essentially changing the token’s name and symbol but keeping the same token and contract address.

This new change comes as on-chain activity on the Layer 1 drops to near record lows.

New name, same token

The Berachain Foundation announced the news on X, informing holders that HONEY, the network’s dollar-pegged stablecoin, will now officially be known as $BUSD.

However, current user balances will not be affected because the token retained the same contract address. The news didn’t get much of a response either, gathering about 117 likes and 14 reposts in its first hours.

According to Cryptopolitan, HONEY had always been a pillar of Berachain’s token structure since its launch, operating alongside sister tokens $BERA for gas and staking and BGT for governance.

Berachain fees under a few dollars a day

The rebrand arrives as Berachain’s on-chain economy experiences a significant slowdown. According to DefiLlama, the network’s total value locked sits around $32 million, while its stablecoin market capitalization hovers near $62 million, with Tether making up roughly two-thirds of that supply.

Daily network activity is also starting to suffer, with Berachain bringing in just about $27 in chain fees and processing about 65,000 transactions from 3,329 active addresses.

A Cryptopolitan report released in March also found that the network typically gets under $100 in daily fees, grouping it with other Layer 1 projects that raised lots of funding but lost engagement, developer interest, and liquidity over time.

From a $1.1 billion vault to a 99% decline

Berachain’s launch painted a massively different picture. Before the project’s mainnet was launched, its pre-deposit vault was well past $1.1 billion with support from over 127,000 depositors, including massive contributions from protocols like StakeStone.

Since then, market conditions have heavily repriced the project. The network’s $BERA token has seen a steep decline from its previous all-time high, pulling its overall market valuation down significantly amid record-low trading thresholds.

According to CoinMarketCap, $BERA is trading around $0.15, which is a 99% decline from its all-time record of $14.99 set in February 2025, leaving the project struggling with a market value of $47 million.

Where the rebrand fits

Berachain raised $142 million across two rounds from backers including Brevan Howard Digital, Polychain, Framework Ventures, and Samsung Next, according to DefiLlama. Its Proof of Liquidity design was originally introduced as a way to tie network security to liquidity provision and draw deposits away from rival chains.

Renaming the stablecoin to match the main brand gives Berachain a cleaner marketing identity, although the foundation did not link the change to any new yield program or incentive in their announcement.

Nonetheless, whether a fresh label can successfully restart ecosystem deposits remains to be seen. The main thing to watch is whether Berachain’s stablecoin supply begins to climb or continues to stall in the coming weeks.