BNB Chain’s Layer 2 community opBNB accomplished its Fourier mainnet laborious fork on January 7 to chop block instances in half.
The improve marks a significant step in BNB Chain’s scaling push, enhancing transaction velocity and reinforcing its place as one of many busiest blockchain ecosystems by way of consumer exercise.
Fourier Onerous Fork Halves Block Occasions on opBNB
The Fourier improve went dwell at 03:00 UTC on January 7, in accordance with 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 sooner transaction confirmations and decrease latency for decentralized functions constructed on opBNB. The community is BNB Chain’s Layer 2 scaling answer, constructed utilizing Optimism’s OP Stack, and it’s designed to deal with high-throughput exercise whereas preserving 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 steer different Layer 1 networks in month-to-month energetic addresses, with Token Terminal information exhibiting about 56 million energetic customers, nicely forward of NEAR Protocol and Solana.
Market Response Amid Aggressive Panorama
BNB’s worth confirmed a measured response following the improve. On the time of writing, it was buying and selling round $917, up about 1% within the final 24 hours. The asset has elevated by nearly 6% over the previous week, with a two-week achieve of about 10%. In the meantime, month-to-month efficiency stays modest at round 2%.
Though the token remains to be up greater than 25% over the previous 12 months, it was not too long ago overtaken by its Ripple rival after XRP jumped from $1.86 to simply below $2.30, at the moment, pushing its market cap previous $138 billion in comparison with BNB’s $126 billion.
The Fourier improve additionally suits right into a wider business pattern. Ethereum activated its Fusaka laborious fork in December 2025, boosting information availability and decreasing Layer 2 prices, whereas Vitalik Buterin not too long ago said that dwell upgrades similar to PeerDAS and early-stage ZK-EVMs have reshaped Ethereum’s scalability mannequin. In opposition to that backdrop, BNB Chain’s deal with execution velocity at each Layer 1 and Layer 2 exhibits a parallel effort to remain aggressive.
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