The upcoming hard fork of the Binance-operated BNB Beacon Chain mainnet will introduce a new feature that will allow the blockchain to "halt" the production of new blocks if certain conditions are met.
The "ZhangHeng" upgrade is anticipated to occur at block height 328,088,888 on July 19, according to a statement issued by BNB Chain on July 12.
The hard fork will introduce Binance Evolution Proposal BEP-255, which aims to implement "on-chain asset reconciliation" — which, according to Binance, could mitigate damage from potential cross-chain bridge exploits like the Binance Smart Chain exploit on October 7, 2022.
According to the Github post regarding BEP-255, "although some improvements 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."
Under the BEP, Binance explained, user balance changes will be monitored in each block and reconciled to identify issues.
"When there are reconciliation errors, the blockchain will panic and stop producing new blocks."
The action will impact "downstream services such as bridges, deposits, and withdrawals on exchanges," according to Binance, but the "dramatic action" is required to safeguard the chain and its users.
Restoring the blockchain will necessitate a hard fork and the correction of the reconciliation error.
"For instance, affiliated accounts should be blacklisted or corrected if exploitation is present. Once the blockchain is restored, downstream services can also be brought back online," the document explains.
Other modifications include a bug fix to prevent "Rogue Key Attacks" — a security vulnerability in which an attacker generates a valid aggregate signature for a transaction when they are not the true owner of the private keys.
"To fix the bug, all existing vote addresses will be purged when the hardfork height is reached," the company explained, adding that validators will need to add vote addresses once more.
In addition, the hard fork is intended to make the blockchain capable of managing more complex business rules and logic.
Binance stated that two-thirds of validators must upgrade their software to v0.10.16 prior to the hard fork; otherwise, complications may arise.
Full nodes that do not upgrade will be unable to execute blocks after the hard fork block height, according to BNB Chain.
BNB Chain detailed a comprehensive set of instructions for how node operators can comply with the hard fork upgrade, but noted that BNB token holders who use Binance.com, other centralized exchanges, or cold wallets are not required to take any action at this time.
On June 19, BNB Chain released opBNB, a new layer-2 scaling solution compatible with Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) that is based on Optimism's OP Stack.
