- BNB Chain gets an upgrade on January 14.
- It will speed up transactions on the network.
BNB Chain is about to get faster.
On January 14, the Binance-affiliated blockchain will undergo its third major upgrade, named Fermi, which will increase the rate at which the network produces new blocks by 40%.
It’s a small change, but it should have a significant impact for both developers and users, Danny Cooper, team lead at Vanguard Vantage, a sub-DAO under BNB Chain lender Venus Protocol, told DL News.
It will “make the network feel more responsive and resilient, especially when activity picks up in high-volatility markets scenarios,” he said.
The upgrade comes as blockchains seek to increase speed and transaction capacity amid Wall Street’s interest in the crypto industry.
For the longest time, blockchains have been constrained by the so-called blockchain trilemma — the notion that a blockchain must sacrifice one of three key features: decentralisation, scalability, or safety.
BNB Chain, launched by top crypto exchange Binance in 2020, has so far focused on speed and scalability while forgoing some decentralisation.
Recent technological advancements may mean the trilemma won’t be an issue for much longer.
On January 3, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin argued his blockchain had solved the trilemma through a combination of two technical upgrades called peer data availability sampling, or PeerDAS, and zero-knowledge virtual machines.
The Fermi upgrade
Blockchain developers often name upgrades after famous academics. BNB Chain has continued this trend, naming the latest upgrade after Enrico Fermi, an Italian-American physicist, best known for creating the world’s first artificial nuclear reactor.
The two previous BNB Chain upgrades were named after French mathematician and physicist Blaise Pascal and Scottish physicist and mathematician James Clark Maxwell.
The Fermi upgrade doesn’t just increase BNB Chain’s block times. It also includes changes that will reduce the network’s finality to around one second, making transaction confirmations more predictable and reducing risks such as slippage in volatile markets.
“More consistent state updates translate into cleaner execution, lower latency, and better results for the end-user overall,” Cooper said.
Finality is the assurance that a blockchain transaction is irreversible and cannot be altered.
Other smaller changes include adjustments to how BNB Chain validators coordinate, more efficient access to the blockchain’s data, and improvements to transaction execution efficiency.
Tim Craig is DL News’ Edinburgh-based DeFi Correspondent. Reach out with tips at tim@dlnews.com.
