Binance’s BNB Beacon Chain mainnet is gearing up for a critical hard fork, which introduces a novel feature that enables the blockchain to stop new block production under specific conditions.
The impending upgrade, called “ZhangHeng,” is slated to take place at block height 328,088,888, expected to happen on July 19, as revealed in a statement from BNB Chain on July 12.
This significant hard fork will implement the Binance Evolution Proposal BEP-255, aimed at introducing on-chain asset reconciliation.
The addition comes in light of cross-chain bridge exploits such as the BNB Smart Chain breach in October 2022, which Binance believes can be mitigated by this strategy.
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Despite security enhancements like BEP171, Binance affirms the need for asset security on the BNB Beacon Chain, especially following bridge exploitation.
The BEP-255 implementation allows tracking of user balance changes per block, and reconciliation to spot potential anomalies.
Binance points out that if any reconciliation errors are detected, block production will cease. This move may affect bridges, deposits, and withdrawals on exchanges but is deemed crucial for the chain and user protection.
Restarting the blockchain will necessitate a hard fork and resolution of the detected reconciliation error. In case of an exploit, the related accounts will need to be corrected or blacklisted.
The blockchain’s resumption will also restore downstream services.
The upcoming hard fork also involves other upgrades, such as fixing a bug that curbs rogue key attacks. Existing vote addresses will be cleared when the hard fork reaches its height, and validators will have to re-add vote addresses.
The update is also designed to enable the chain to handle complex business rules and logic more effectively.
Binance highlights the need for two-thirds of validators to upgrade to software version v0.10.16 prior to the hard fork to avoid complications. Failing to upgrade would prevent full nodes from executing further blocks post-hard fork.
BNB Chain has provided comprehensive instructions for node operators to conform to the hard fork upgrade. BNB token holders using Binance.com, other centralized exchanges, or cold wallets, however, need not take any action presently.
On June 19, BNB Chain introduced opBNB, a new Ethereum Virtual Machine-compatible layer-2 scaling solution based on Optimism’s OP Stack.
