All you need to know about BNB Chain’s upcoming Fermat hard fork

• The protocol wants to assist in gas fee reduction for L2 transactions.
• Development activity on the network dropped but there are upcoming node changes.

On 26 October, BNB Chain announced that it has fixed a date for the Fermat hard fork testnet. According to BNB Chain, which is a cross-chain smart contract protocol, the event is billed to happen on 3 November between 14:00 – 14:15 UTC+8 at block height 12113000.

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For context, a hard fork refers to a change in the protocol of a blockchain network that requires users and developers to upgrade to the latest version of the software.

In some cases, a hard fork leads to the splitting of a cryptocurrency. One popular example is the Bitcoin [BTC] hard fork that resulted in the development of Bitcoin Cash [BCH].

To clear the way for transactions and data

For BNB Chain, the Fermat hard fork would pave the way for interoperability between opBNB and BNB Greenfield. In simpler terms, the upgrade would enable the reduction of L1 gas fees for L2 transactions.

In April, BNB Chain launched the Greenfield testnet to improve data storage and ownership on the protocol. opBNB was also developed using the Optimism [OP] Stack to enable faster and cheaper transactions on the BNB Chain.

From Token Terminal’s data, the number of core developers on the BNB Chain has reduced from the count in the last 180 days. At press time, the core developers on the chain were 42. This decrease implies that the dedication by developers to improving the network was relatively low.

Meanwhile, the Transactions Per Seconds (TPS) on the network has improved. With a TPS of 39, one could conclude that the opBNB was having a positive effect on activity within the BNB Chain.

Source: Token Terminal

Take note of these steps 

BNB Chain also gave clear instructions that developers and users may need to follow religiously in preparation for the Fermat testnet. According to the blog post posted by the protocol, the BNB community developers need to upgrade their nodes to opNode v0.2.0 and opGeth v0.2.0 before the hard fork time. 

By definition, a node is a computer network responsible for keeping a blockchain network running. Each node is a separate computer built to store information on the blockchain while acting as a distributed ledger. BNB Chain noted that the action was important because,

“The upgrade will ensure that their nodes are compatible with the new pre-compiled contracts and that they can continue to operate smoothly after the hard fork.”

The disclosure also explained the benefits of upgrading to opNode v0.2.0 and opGeth v0.2.0. 

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With respect to opNode v0.2.0, BNB Chain noted that the fixed L1 gas would increase to 3Gwei. In testnet mode, gas can hit a maximum of 5 Gwei.

Gwie is a unit of Ethereum [ETH] used to specify gas prices. On the other hand, opGeth v0.2.0 would enable two new precompiled contracts to verify signatures in smart contracts and validate light blocks.