Binance’s BNB Chain Scaling Plans to Enhance Efficiency and Speed
Binance, the largest centralized cryptocurrency exchange globally, offers a wide range of products and services catering to different user groups. One of its highly utilized products is BNB Chain, which stands as one of the most popular blockchains in the industry. With an average of over one million daily active users in April, BNB Chain serves various purposes such as transactions, swaps, gaming, and more.
However, the minds behind BNB Chain believe that a million daily active users are insufficient. To achieve exponential growth, BNB needs to focus on making blockchain transactions faster and more affordable.
BNB Chain Scaling Solutions
Despite already being one of the most consistently used blockchains worldwide, BNB Chain continues its development efforts to enhance accessibility. Zoe Wei, the Director of Ecosystem Growth at BNB Chain, spoke to DailyCoin’s Sections Editor Stefan Trapp at the Next Block Expo in Warsaw, Poland, revealing Binance’s active development of Layer-2 scaling solutions.
Wei highlighted that although there are cheaper blockchains available, BNB Chain aims to surpass not only them but also traditional Web2 systems in terms of speed. Recognizing the need for scaling solutions across all Layer-1 blockchains, including BNB Chain, Wei emphasized the exploration of optimistic and zero-knowledge-based rollups, following the lead of the Ethereum community.
Optimistic and ZK-Rollups to Scale BNB Chain
BNB Chain has made significant progress in developing its own scaling solutions. One notable example is zkBNB, a scaling tool built on a zero-knowledge architecture. It bundles thousands of transactions and executes them off-chain, providing a proof to the underlying layer that the transactions were correctly executed. This approach drastically reduces transaction costs and increases throughput to thousands of transactions per second. zkBNB is currently in the testnet phase and is expected to launch on the mainnet soon.
Wei also mentioned BNB Chain’s exploration of optimistic rollups, including opBNB, which is expected to process over 20,000 transactions per second, in theory. opBNB will utilize the BNB token and is scheduled for release in Q3 of this year.
Ensuring Security
As one of the most actively used blockchains globally, BNB Chain faces challenges such as scams and rug pulls. Wei highlighted the significant investment BNB Chain makes in user security and introduced AvengerDAO as a community-led initiative combating fraudulent activities.
To address rug pulls and scams on BNB Chain, AvengerDAO scans suspicious transactions and provides reminders to users to exercise caution. This proactive approach helps users avoid potentially fraudulent projects, ensuring that only reputable projects thrive on BNB Chain.
Wei also discussed the Planck upgrade, which went live in April, incorporating security changes in BEP-171. This upgrade introduced a timer lock on large cross-chain transactions, enhancing the security of assets flowing across different chains.
According to Wei, BNB Chain’s future security proposals rely on community input, emphasizing that BEP-171 was also a community-led initiative.