Infrared Finance
Rejected venues wait the longest for re-review; a rejection has to earn another look before the scheduled date.
Infrared Finance is a liquid staking protocol for BERA on Berachain, built around the chain’s proof-of-liquidity design. Its single pool held $12.4 million at the 2026-08-14 survey. The registry rejects it on size: one practice advising 100 households moves $1M to $8M into a venue on the same research, and below $100M TVL that book becomes the exit crush. Size alone decides it, whatever the protocol’s quality. A review at size would also depend on the standing of Berachain itself in the chain registry.
- TVL sustained above $100M for 30 days
The research file
Materiality mechanism, applied
The threshold is a capacity constraint, not a quality judgment. A $2 million household with a 5-10% crypto sleeve and a 10-40% venue weight implies roughly $10,000 to $80,000 directed here; across 100 similar clients one practice can point $1 million to $8 million at a single venue on the same research. Below $100 million of protocol TVL, that book becomes the exit crush, and TVL itself is a generous capacity proxy rather than a promise of executable withdrawal: utilization, queues, unbonding, bridge depth and token liquidity can all leave less actually withdrawable than the headline figure implies. Small size does not itself indicate weak governance or team quality; the class rule stops short of that judgment because inadequate capacity for this distribution channel cannot be cured by otherwise-strong controls.
Mechanism applicability
Infrared documents iBERA as a liquid-staking token backed 1:1 by BERA delegated to its validator set, with rewards reflected through validator sweep events. The broader protocol also includes iBGT and proof-of-liquidity products, but this survey record is the iBERA staking perimeter.
Current observation and perimeter
The DefiLlama API read on 2026-08-15 reported approximately $16.4M on Berachain and classified Infrared Finance as liquid staking. The single-chain product remains far below the shared v1 $100M threshold; no current evidence disproves the size basis.
Control and exit applicability
Infrared selects the validator set and controls reward sweeps and iBERA contracts. Protocol redemption burns iBERA and queues withdrawal requests, while immediate exit depends on secondary liquidity. Audit evidence is not a guarantee against slashing, queue or liquidity stress.
Why the class rule decides
The shared v1 below-materiality dossier controls. Reopen after iBERA TVL sustains at least $100M for 30 days and Berachain has an acceptable chain disposition. Then verify validators and slashing, backing and sweeps, controls, audits and incidents, fees, queue behavior, and stressed exits against named alternatives.
Sources
The claims above trace to these. Where a number could not be independently verified, the thesis says so.
- Infrared Docs — current token mechanisms · primary · accessed 2026-08-15
Supports: iBERA, 1:1 BERA backing, validator set, iBGT distinction, proof of liquidity - Infrared — current iBERA documentation · primary · accessed 2026-08-15
Supports: validator rewards, sweep events, APR accounting, product perimeter - DefiLlama — Infrared Finance survey record · secondary · accessed 2026-08-15
Supports: current TVL, Berachain, liquid-staking category, survey perimeter
Inherited controls
The verdict above grades the protocol layer. Every position also inherits the asset it holds and the chain it settles on. The least safe layer sets the position’s grade, and the position table names which one that is.
| Chain | Verdict | Grade | Control constraint |
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