BNB Chain activates opBNB Fourier hard fork, cutting block time in half

Halving block times on opBNB shifts the focus from raw throughput to user experience, especially for latency-sensitive DeFi apps.

BNB Chain’s Layer 2 network opBNB completed a hard fork of Fourier mainnet on January 7th, cutting block times in half.

This upgrade marks a meaningful step in BNB Chain’s scaling drive, increasing transaction speeds and strengthening its position as one of the busiest blockchain ecosystems in terms of user activity.

Fourier hard fork cuts opBNB blocking time in half

The Fourier upgrade went live on January 7th at 03:00 UTC, according to an announcement from BNB Chain developers posted on X on the same day. Due to the hard fork, opBNB’s block interval was reduced from 500ms to 250ms, and the change was confirmed by Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao shortly after, saying the network completed the upgrade smoothly.

For developers and users, faster block times mean faster transaction confirmations and lower latency for distributed applications built on top of opBNB. The network is BNB Chain’s Layer 2 scaling solution built using Optimism’s OP Stack and is designed to handle high-throughput activities while keeping prices low.

Node operators were instructed to upgrade to a supported client version, such as op-node v0.5.5 or op-geth v0.5.9, prior to the hard fork. The Fourier upgrade follows previous opBNB improvements, including the Fjord hard fork in September 2024, which adjusted layer 1 pricing, and the light upgrade in August 2024, which introduced gasless transaction support.

The timing is notable given that the BNB Chain continues to lead other Layer 1 networks in monthly active addresses, with Token Terminal data showing approximately 56 million active users, well ahead of the NEAR protocol and Solana.

Market reaction in a competitive environment

After the upgrade, BNB price showed a measured reaction. At the time of writing, it was trading around $917, up about 1% over the past 24 hours. The asset has increased about 6% over the past week and about 10% over the past two weeks. Meanwhile, monthly performance remains modest at around 2%.

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While the token is still up more than 25% over the past year, it was recently overtaken by Ripple’s rival after XRP soared from $1.86 to just under $2.30, and now has a market capitalization of over $138 billion compared to BNB’s $126 billion.

Fourier upgrades also fit into broader industry trends. Ethereum activated the Fusaka hard fork in December 2025 to increase data availability and reduce layer 2 costs. Meanwhile, Vitalik Buterin recently stated that live upgrades such as PeerDAS and the early stage ZK-EVM have reshaped Ethereum’s scalability model. Against this background, BNB Chain’s focus on execution speed at both Layer 1 and Layer 2 indicates a parallel effort to remain competitive.