The BNB Chain community is counting down with two days left until the Pasteur hard fork.
In a recent post, the BNB Chain network launched a countdown to the Pasteur hard fork, adding that major upgrades, including stronger bridge verification, safer validator key rotation, and more room in every block, are coming to the network.
The Pasteur hard fork takes a slight turn from the last two upgrades, which were about speed. The Fermi hard fork, which activated in January this year, brought block times down to 0.45 seconds and was followed by the Osaka/Mendel hard fork in April, which steadied the network at that pace.
BNB Chain developers note that Pasteur is about using that speed more fully and closing two ways a validator could hold onto power it should not have, with three proposals shipped in the fork, grouped under BEP-673.
The upgrade introduces three changes: stronger bridge verification (BEP-682), validator keys that properly retire (BEP-695), and fuller blocks at the same speed (BEP-675).
BEP-682 and BEP-695 harden the bridge, staking, and governance, while BEP-675 fills blocks more fully: 1,237 to 2,324 TPS in testnet benchmarks. BEP-675 lets a builder submit a block they have already executed. The validator checks it against consensus rules, signs and broadcasts, then finishes full verification afterwards.
The Pasteur hard fork has been live on the BSC testnet since July 21 and is expected to activate on the BNB Smart Chain mainnet at 02:30 AM UTC on August 25, 2026. Node operators are urged to upgrade to v1.7.7 before this date.
What’s next?
One of the three changes to be introduced in the Pasteur hard fork, BEP-675, is the capacity workstream in the H2 2026 roadmap.
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In the first half of 2026, BSC cut block intervals to 450 ms, brought in-memory finality down to 650 ms, and nearly doubled benchmark throughput to about 5,200 TPS. The H2 objective is to double mainnet throughput again, on a stated path toward a 10x improvement across BNB Chain.
The Pasteur hard fork is in line with the stated objective of doubling mainnet throughput, scaling toward a long-term improvement across BNB Chain.
