BNB Chain has successfully activated its Fermi hard fork, a major network upgrade that significantly enhances the performance of the BNB Smart Chain (BSC). The upgrade, which went live on January 14, 2026, at 02:30 UTC, reduces block production times from 0.75 seconds to 0.45 seconds, aiming to achieve transaction finality in "around one second." This positions BSC as one of the fastest major Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) compatible chains.
The Fermi upgrade represents the final phase of BNB Chain's "short block interval" roadmap and is designed as a fundamental performance and reliability enhancement. According to Nina Rong, executive director at BNB Chain, the goal is to deliver "faster [performance] without compromising reliability." The upgrade pairs shorter block intervals with strengthened fast-finality rules to ensure predictable confirmation guarantees even during periods of network congestion.
Ahead of the activation, BNB Chain issued an urgent message to developers, validators, and node operators, instructing them to upgrade to client version v1.6.4 to avoid network disruption. The chain warned that nodes failing to upgrade might fall out of sync and lose network access. The upgrade process requires validators to rebuild their state snapshot upon first startup.
The technical refinements introduced by Fermi are targeted at latency-sensitive applications such as on-chain trading, real-time decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols, and interactive gaming DApps. Rong emphasized that the upgrade is designed to improve "real-world performance, not just peak throughput," ensuring stable confirmation times during activity spikes. The design was informed by past episodes of network congestion during speculative surges.
Most decentralized applications and smart contracts are not expected to require code changes, making the transition largely seamless for end-users. However, development teams relying on precise block timing were advised to re-check their assumptions due to the significantly faster block arrival.
This upgrade comes on the heels of a highly active 2025 for BNB Chain, which ranked as the second-busiest blockchain by total on-chain transactions (roughly 3.89 billion), trailing only Solana. The network's growth has been fueled by low fees, performance optimizations, and a vibrant DeFi and memecoin ecosystem. Fermi is a key part of BNB Chain's 2026 tech roadmap, focusing on high-performance infrastructure and scaling the base layer for heavier workloads.
