BNB Chain Activates opBNB Fourier Hard Fork, Cutting Block Times in Half
BNB Chain’s Layer 2 community opBNB accomplished its Fourier mainnet laborious fork on January 7 to chop block occasions in half.
The improve marks a significant step in BNB Chain’s scaling push, enhancing transaction pace and reinforcing its place as one of many busiest blockchain ecosystems in phrases of person exercise.
Fourier Hard Fork Halves Block Times on opBNB
The Fourier improve went reside at 03:00 UTC on January 7, in response to an announcement from BNB Chain builders posted on X the identical day. The laborious fork lowered opBNB’s block interval from 500 milliseconds to 250 milliseconds, a change confirmed shortly after by Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao, who famous that the community accomplished the improve easily.
For builders and customers, the shorter block time means quicker transaction confirmations and decrease latency for decentralized functions constructed on opBNB. The community is BNB Chain’s Layer 2 scaling resolution, constructed utilizing Optimism’s OP Stack, and it’s designed to deal with high-throughput exercise whereas conserving charges low.
Node operators have been instructed to improve to supported shopper variations forward of the laborious fork, together with op-node v0.5.5 and op-geth v0.5.9. The Fourier improve follows earlier opBNB enhancements such because the Fjord laborious fork in September 2024, which adjusted Layer 1 charge calculations, and the Wright improve in August 2024 that launched gasless transaction assist.
The timing is notable, on condition that BNB Chain continues to guide different Layer 1 networks in month-to-month lively addresses, with Token Terminal knowledge exhibiting about 56 million lively customers, properly forward of NEAR Protocol and Solana.
Market Reaction Amid Competitive Landscape
BNB’s worth confirmed a measured response following the improve. At the time of writing, it was buying and selling round $917, up about 1% in the final 24 hours. The asset has elevated by nearly 6% over the previous week, with a two-week achieve of about 10%. Meanwhile, month-to-month efficiency stays modest at round 2%.
Although the token remains to be up greater than 25% over the previous yr, it was not too long ago overtaken by its Ripple rival after XRP jumped from $1.86 to simply beneath $2.30, at present, pushing its market cap previous $138 billion in comparison with BNB’s $126 billion.
The Fourier improve additionally matches right into a wider trade pattern. Ethereum activated its Fusaka laborious fork in December 2025, boosting knowledge availability and decreasing Layer 2 prices, whereas Vitalik Buterin not too long ago acknowledged that reside upgrades equivalent to PeerDAS and early-stage ZK-EVMs have reshaped Ethereum’s scalability mannequin. Against that backdrop, BNB Chain’s concentrate on execution pace at each Layer 1 and Layer 2 reveals a parallel effort to remain aggressive.
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