Two Days Left: BNB Chain Prepares for Pasteur Hard Fork With Heavy Network Upgrades

The $BNB Chain community is counting down the final two days before the Pasteur hard fork, an upgrade the network describes as bringing heavy improvements to bridges, validator security, and block capacity.

In a recent post, the $BNB Chain network launched a countdown to the Pasteur hard fork, stating that major upgrades — including stronger bridge verification, safer validator key rotation, and more room in every block — are coming to the network. BSC consistently ranks among the busiest smart-contract networks by transaction count, so the new bridge, validator, and block rules will apply across a broad ecosystem of node operators, validators, and staking services.

Pasteur marks a slight turn from the chain's last two upgrades, which were about speed. The Fermi hard fork, which activated in January this year, brought block times down to 0.45 seconds and was followed by the Osaka/Mendel hard fork in April, which steadied the network at that pace. $BNB Chain developers note that Pasteur is about using that speed more fully and closing two ways a validator could hold onto power it should not have, with three proposals shipped in the fork, grouped under BEP-673.

As announced by the network:

3 days until Pasteur Hardfork. Heavy upgrades are coming: → Stronger bridge verification → Safer validator key rotation → More room in every block Node operators, upgrade to v1.7.7 before August 25. Read the full upgrades 👇 — $BNB Chain (@BNBCHAIN) August 22, 2026

The upgrade introduces three changes: stronger bridge verification (BEP-682), validator keys that properly retire (BEP-695), and fuller blocks at the same speed (BEP-675). BEP-682 and BEP-695 harden the bridge, staking, and governance, while BEP-675 fills blocks more fully — lifting throughput from 1,237 to 2,324 TPS in testnet benchmarks. The bridge focus touches a well-documented weak point across the industry: cross-chain bridges have been behind several of the largest exploits in crypto history, including the Ronin and Wormhole hacks of 2022, each of which ran into the hundreds of millions of dollars.

Under BEP-675, a builder submits a block they have already executed. The validator checks it against consensus rules, signs and broadcasts it, and then finishes full verification afterwards.

The Pasteur hard fork has been live on the BSC testnet since July 21 and is expected to activate on the $BNB Smart Chain mainnet at 02:30 AM UTC on August 25, 2026. Node operators are urged to upgrade to v1.7.7 before this date; as with any hard fork, nodes still running older software once the new rules take effect will not follow the upgraded chain and can fall out of sync.

What's next?

One of the three changes to be introduced in the Pasteur hard fork, BEP-675, is the capacity workstream in the H2 2026 roadmap.

In the first half of 2026, BSC cut block intervals to 450 ms, brought in-memory finality down to 650 ms, and nearly doubled benchmark throughput to about 5,200 TPS. The H2 objective is to double mainnet throughput again, on a stated path toward a 10x improvement across $BNB Chain.

The Pasteur hard fork is in line with the stated objective of doubling mainnet throughput, scaling toward a long-term improvement across $BNB Chain.