BNB Beacon Chain mainnet is set to undergo the "ZhangHeng" hard fork around July 19, which will bring new upgrades aimed at improving security.
The Binance-operated BNB Beacon Chain mainnet is set to add a new feature in its upcoming hard fork, which will give the blockchain the ability to “halt” the production of new blocks if certain conditions are met.
In a July 12 statement from BNB Chain, the “ZhangHeng” upgrade is expected to take place at block height 328,088,888, which it expects will occur on July 19.
Important information about our latest upgrade ⤵️https://t.co/4sJkTJbGeZ
— BNB Chain (@BNBCHAIN) July 12, 2023
The hard fork will introduce Binance Evolution Proposal BEP-255, which seeks to implement “on-chain asset reconciliation” — which Binance believes could mitigate damage from potential cross-chain bridge exploits such as the Binance Smart Chain exploit on Oct. 7, 2022.
“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,” according to the Github post concerning BEP-255.
Binance explained that under the BEP, user balance changes will be tracked in each block and will be reconciled to identify any issues.
On June 19, BNB Chain launched opBNB — a new Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM)-compatible layer-2 scaling solution based on Optimism’s OP Stack.