The BNB Beacon Chain mainnet, powered by Binance, is set to incorporate a new feature during its upcoming hard fork. This update will enable the blockchain to temporarily pause block production under specific conditions. BNB Chain announced the “Zhangheng” update, expected to occur at block 328,088,888 on July 19th.
The primary objective of the hard fork is to implement Binance Evolution Proposition BEP-255, which aims to establish an on-chain asset solution. By introducing this proposal, Binance aims to mitigate the potential risks associated with cross-chain bridging exploits, such as the BNB Smart Chain exploit that occurred on October 7, 2022.
The GitHub post on BEP-255 emphasizes the importance of ensuring the security of assets on the BNB Beacon Chain, especially in light of previous bridge exploits. It mentions the implementation of BEP171 as a measure to improve cross-chain security. Under BEP-255, the balance changes of users will be closely monitored and analyzed in each block to identify any anomalies.
In the event of reconciliation errors, the blockchain will automatically halt the generation of new blocks as a precautionary measure. Binance acknowledges that this action will impact downstream services like exchange bridging, deposits, and withdrawals. Nevertheless, they assert that such drastic action is necessary to safeguard the integrity of the chain and protect its users.
To rectify any errors and bring the blockchain back online, a hard fork and solution error resolution process will be initiated. The concerned accounts involved in any exploitation will be blacklisted or corrected. Once the blockchain restarts, downstream services can resume normal functioning.
Binance Implements “Zhangheng” Update to Enhance Security and Scalability
The upcoming hard fork will also address bug fixes related to preventing fake password attacks, which occur when an unauthorized writer produces a valid composite signature for a transaction. As part of this fix, all existing voting addresses will be deleted at the peak of the hard fork, and validators will need to re-add the polling addresses.
Additionally, the hard fork aims to enhance the chain’s capability to handle more complex business rules and logic. However, to avoid complications, two-thirds of validators must update their software version to v0.10.16 before the hard fork. Failure to do so will result in non-upgraded full nodes being unable to execute any further blocks after the hard fork block height.
BNB Chain has provided comprehensive instructions for node operators to comply with the hard fork update. However, BNB token holders using Binance.com, centralized exchanges, or offline wallets are not required to take any action at the moment.
As the blockchain technology landscape continues to evolve, scalability remains a significant challenge. To address this, BNB Chain has deployed OPBNB, a layer 2 scalability solution designed to overcome the limitations of layer 1 (L1) networks. On June 19th, the BNB Chain launched OPBNB, which is a new Ethereum virtual machine-compatible Layer 2 scaling solution based on Optimism’s OP stack.
