BNB Chain activates Pasteur hard fork to boost bridge security

BNB Chain confirmed the Pasteur hard fork went live Tuesday on the BNB Smart Chain mainnet. The upgrade combines three BNB Evolution Proposals and aims to close gaps in bridge verification and validator authorization while increasing block capacity without changing the 450-millisecond block time.

The package includes BEP-682, BEP-695 and BEP-675. BEP-682 prevents duplicate validator entries during cross-chain light-block verification. BEP-695 tightens controls on validator key rotation, slashing and governance voting, removes authority from obsolete validator keys and blocks restricted addresses from participating in votes.

BEP-675 alters how specialized block builders submit blocks to validators. Under the previous route, builders executed transactions and validators re-executed them before signing, a sequence that could leave blocks underfilled within the 450-millisecond window. The new route lets builders submit pre-executed blocks; validators then validate the proposed block against consensus rules, sign and broadcast it, and complete full execution verification afterward. Builders may continue using the prior execution-and-reexecute route if they prefer.

In tests on QANet, an internal environment that mirrors the network’s geographically distributed validators, the new route raised throughput by about 88%, from 1,237 to 2,324 transactions per second. Average gas used per block increased from roughly 46.35 million to 84.15 million. The block interval and the 100 million gas limit remained unchanged. BNB Chain cautioned those figures were generated by a controlled test workload and are not mainnet measurements.

Pasteur follows earlier upgrades focused on faster blocks. The Maxwell hard fork reduced average block time from about 1.5 seconds to 0.8 seconds in June 2025, and the subsequent Fermi upgrade brought it to 450 milliseconds. BNB Chain stated Pasteur’s changes are intended to allow fuller blocks during periods of heavy network activity without altering the established block interval.