BNB Chain Confirms Pasteur Hard Fork for August 25

BNB Chain will activate the Pasteur hard fork on BNB Smart Chain on August 25, adding bridge and validator security fixes plus higher tested throughput. The upgrade keeps the network’s block interval and gas limits unchanged.

According to BNB Chain’s Pasteur announcement, the hard fork activates at 2:30 a.m. UTC on August 25 after Chapel testnet work that began on July 21. The package sits under BEP-673 and combines three proposals in one coordinated mainnet cutover.

Pasteur Hardens Bridge Checks and Validator Keys

BEP-682 tightens cross-chain bridge verification by rejecting duplicate validator signatures before transfer approvals count. Previously, repeated validator entries could inflate voting power and let fewer genuine signatures meet the threshold.

BEP-695 hardens staking and governance after key rotations. Retired consensus keys lose administrative authority, pending penalties stay attached to the validator through rotations, and blacklisted addresses cannot join signature-based governance votes.

Those changes matter for anyone moving assets across bridges or tracking blockchain technology upgrades that tighten validator discipline.

Block Processing Path Targets Higher Capacity

BEP-675 changes how builders and validators share work during block production. Builders can submit fully executed blocks for validator review instead of forcing every validator to re-run the same execution path immediately.

The design keeps the 450-millisecond block interval and existing gas limits. In controlled QANet testing, validator processing time fell from 125 milliseconds to 15 milliseconds, and throughput rose from 1,237 to 2,324 transactions per second under the same conditions. Average block gas usage also rose in those tests.

BNB Chain stressed that those figures come from controlled environments, not live mainnet traffic.

Node Operators Must Upgrade Before Aug. 25

Mainnet node operators must run BSC client v1.7.7 before activation or risk falling out of sync. Operators also need to remove the EnableBAL setting from configuration files, or the updated client will not start.

Several outdated command-line options are removed or disabled in the release. Most application developers and everyday users do not need a migration. Block builders that adopt the new processing path must run full nodes rather than fast nodes.

Pasteur follows earlier Fermi and Osaka/Mendel upgrades that cut block times. This release shifts the focus toward stronger bridge and validator security plus higher capacity under the same block cadence.