BNB Smart Chain activated its Pasteur hardfork on August 25, introducing changes designed to strengthen cross-chain verification and validator controls while allowing the network to process more transactions within its existing 450-millisecond block interval.
According to the BNB Chain blog post, the upgrade went live at 02:30 a.m. UTC and includes three proposals under BEP-673: BEP-682, BEP-695 and BEP-675. The upgrade follows BNB Chain’s earlier efforts to speed up block production, but Pasteur takes a different approach by focusing on security and making better use of the network’s existing block capacity.
Pasteur strengthens bridge verification
One of the key changes comes from BEP-682, which modifies how BNB Smart Chain verifies validator signatures used in bridge operations. The system relies on a precompile at address 0x67 to check whether enough validators have signed off on a block before assets can move between chains. Previously, the verification process did not explicitly reject duplicate validators in a submitted set.
This meant a validator could theoretically appear more than once and have its voting power counted repeatedly toward the required threshold.
Pasteur now rejects duplicate entries, ensuring the signature threshold is based on distinct validators rather than repeated representations of the same validator.
Old validator keys lose power
BEP-695 focuses on validator key rotation and governance.
Validators regularly replace consensus keys, but old keys previously retained some authority that should have ended after the rotation. Pasteur removes validator-admin authority from rotated keys and ensures that pending slashing-related evictions continue to follow the validator after a key change.
The upgrade also extends blacklist protections to signature-based governance votes. Addresses on the blacklist will now be rejected when using functions such as castVoteBySig and castVoteWithReasonAndParamsBySig.
More transactions in each Block
The largest performance change comes from BEP-675, which is designed to increase the number of transactions BNB Smart Chain can process while keeping its 450-millisecond block interval and 100 million gas limit.
Pasteur builds on BNB Chain’s earlier push to shorten block times. The Maxwell hardfork reduced BSC’s block interval to 0.75 seconds, shifting the network toward faster block production. Pasteur instead focuses on how much activity each block can handle.
Under the previous system, both builders and validators executed the same transactions, adding extra work within the block window. BNB Chain said this could leave some blocks underfilled when the available time ran out.
BEP-675 allows builders to submit blocks that have already been executed. Validators can check the block against consensus rules, sign and broadcast it, and complete full verification afterward.
Tests on QANet, an internal testnet designed to mirror the mainnet’s cross-region validator setup, showed throughput rising from 1,237 transactions per second to 2,324 TPS under the tested conditions. Average gas usage also increased from 46.35 million to 84.15 million against a 100 million gas limit.
The benchmark reduced the validator’s portion of the critical path from 125 milliseconds to 15 milliseconds, while finality lag remained unchanged.
BNB Chain stressed that these are controlled testnet results and do not represent confirmed mainnet performance.
What changes for users?
Most users and developers will not need to take any action following the upgrade.
The main integration work falls on block builders that want to use the new BEP-675 path. They will need to operate a full node because the builder must produce an already-executed block. Existing bidding methods will continue to work.
For users, the immediate effect is expected to be largely invisible. The practical benefit is additional capacity during periods of heavy activity, potentially allowing the network to accommodate more transactions before congestion develops.
Node operators must upgrade
Validators and node operators were required to upgrade to client version 1.7.7 before the hardfork activation. BNB Chain also warned operators to remove [Eth] EnableBAL from config.toml, as nodes containing the setting will not start.
Pasteur is part of BNB Chain’s broader 2026 scaling roadmap, which targets a doubling of mainnet throughput in the second half of the year and a longer-term 10-fold increase across BNB Chain.
The next test will be whether the performance improvements recorded on QANet can be sustained under real mainnet conditions as builders begin adopting the new block-production process.
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