[BNB Chain launches hard fork to reduce fees]
On June 20, BNB Chain announced the successful launch of this hard fork, claiming that blockchain fees were reduced by 90%. BEP-336 draws inspiration from Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP)-4844 to implement transactions carrying blobs, a concept that simplifies the verification process. According to BNB Chain, after the implementation of BEP-336, the Layer-2 cost of BNB Smart Chain (BSC) will be reduced by 90%. The network claims that network fees for its optimistic rolling layer 2 solution, opBNB, will be reduced to approximately $0.0001.
With this update, transactions no longer need to be verified individually within a block, but instead will be verified in an additional blob (a temporary memory segment that captures a large data block). Although the update is similar to Ethereum’s EIP-4844, BNB Chain stated that BEP-336 is tailor-made for BSC. Blobs on BSC are managed only by BSC clients. In addition, the pricing mechanism has also been adjusted for BSC. Unlike Ethereum's burning mechanism, BSC does not burn the base fee within the blob.
The update is also expected to impact BNB Greenfield, a decentralized storage solution. According to BNB Chain, Greenfield will enhance its decentralized storage and data management through “BlobHub”, a data archiving layer. This will optimize data storage for decentralized applications (DApps) and Layer-2 networks.
The hard fork comes as BNB, the network’s native cryptocurrency, hits a new price milestone. On June 6, the BNB token reached an all-time high of $717.48. The price fell back to $579 on June 18. Currently, BNB is hovering around $605. BNB’s price growth during the first week of June outpaced the performance of the crypto market during the same period. BNB has accumulated 19% growth, while the market has only grown 4.2%. Still, traders are questioning the sustainability of this rally and looking for indicators to support the momentum.
