The BNB Beacon Chain Hard Fork Upgrade
The BNB Beacon Chain, the Binance blockchain ecosystem, is expected to undergo a scheduled hard fork upgrade on 19th July at 6:00 UTC, with enhanced security features for users.
Hard Fork: “ZhangHeng”
The hard fork, named “ZhangHeng” after a Chinese scientist, will occur at block height 328,088,888, according to the official announcement made on July 12. A hard fork is a change to the software protocol that makes previously invalid blocks/transactions valid, or vice-versa.
While the upgrade primarily focuses on improving overall security, it will have no direct impact on most users.
“If you are using any exchanges which support BNB, there’s no action required on your side unless your exchange or wallet service notifies you.”
However, full node operators on the mainnet must upgrade their software version to v0.10.16 before reaching the hard fork block height. Failure to do so will result in the node not syncing with the upgraded BNB Beacon Chain peer/validator nodes, preventing connection and transaction functionality.
Additionally, there will be no issuance of new BNB tokens, and two-thirds of all BNB Chain validators are required to upgrade their nodes for a smooth transition during the hard fork.
Enhanced Security and Functionality
The project announced two major security changes in the upgrade. Developers noted that the upgrade will introduce BEP-255, which proposes on-chain asset reconciliation on BNB Beacon Chain to improve security.
BEP-255 will track user balance changes in each block and reconcile to identify issues. In case of reconciliation errors, the blockchain will “panic” and stop producing new blocks, as stated in the update.
Another security enhancement will include a bug fix that addresses the vulnerability called ‘Rogue Key Attack,’ which could jeopardize the correctness of the Fast Finality mechanism of the network.
To fix the bug, all existing vote addresses will be removed when the height of the hard fork is reached, and validators will need to add vote addresses again.
“Although some enhancements have been made to improve cross-chain security, such as BEP171, the security of assets on the BNB Beacon Chain itself should also be guaranteed, especially after the bridge exploitation,” developers wrote in a GitHub post.
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