BNB Chain has successfully launched its Maxwell hardfork on the mainnet as of June 30, 2025, implementing its most aggressive speed upgrade to date. This update reduces block times from 1.5 seconds to approximately 0.75-0.8 seconds, effectively doubling the transaction throughput and enhancing network responsiveness.
The upgrade is driven by three key proposals: BEP-524 cuts the block intervals in half, enabling lower latency and faster transaction confirmations; BEP-563 improves validator message handling to reduce missed votes and synchronization delays; and BEP-564 introduces advanced block-fetching logic that enhances node-to-node communication and speeds up syncing.
These improvements aim to significantly enhance user experience and scalability, particularly in high-demand areas such as decentralized finance (DeFi), GameFi, and NFT trading. The Maxwell hardfork also modifies consensus parameters, such as doubling epoch length and extending validator turn length while maintaining fast finality under 2 seconds to ensure stability with increased throughput.
The upgrade impacts maximum extractable value (MEV) dynamics, requiring arbitrageurs and MEV builders to adapt their strategies to the new sub-second block times. On the market side, BNB token price has seen an uptick, trading around $654 to $655 with a daily volume surge indicating growing market interest and speculative activity around the upgrade deployment.
BNB Chain’s developers emphasize that this is more than a speed boost; it is a foundational enhancement designed to create a faster, more reliable, and scalable blockchain network. The Maxwell hardfork follows the April Lorentz upgrade, which previously reduced block times from 3 to 1.5 seconds, continuing the chain's trajectory of sustained performance improvements.