BNB Smart Chain successfully activated the Pasteur hard fork on mainnet at 02:30 UTC on Aug. 25, according to crypto.news. The fork bundled three BNB Evolution Proposals — BEP-682, BEP-695 and BEP-675 — under the broader BEP-673 upgrade plan. The changes had been running on BSC’s Chapel testnet since July 21 before reaching mainnet.
The activation proceeded without major disruption, with BSC continuing to produce blocks at its existing 450-millisecond interval. Node operators were required to update their software client to version 1.7.7 and remove the EnableBAL setting ahead of the fork.
BEP-682 changes how the network verifies light blocks submitted through cross-chain infrastructure. It now rejects duplicate validator entries before calculating whether a voting threshold has been reached, closing a gap that could have made a bridge approval appear to carry more independent support than it actually did. BNB Chain described the change as preventive and did not report that the bridge flaw had been exploited.
BEP-695 closes gaps around validator key rotation, penalties and governance. When a validator replaces its operator key, the previous key loses management rights, and validators cannot avoid pending penalties by rotating keys. The updated contracts also check the original signer before counting a delegated vote, blocking restricted addresses from using offchain signatures to participate in governance.
BEP-675 introduces an optional route for specialist builders to submit blocks they have already executed, letting validators sign without re-running full execution. Builders can keep using the previous process, and the new route must be enabled through the network’s remote procedure call interface. In controlled QANet testing, throughput rose from 1,237 to 2,324 transactions per second, while average gas consumption per block rose from 46.35 million to 84.15 million. The 450-millisecond block time and 100-million gas limit remained unchanged. BNB Chain noted the performance figures came from controlled testing rather than mainnet activity.
The upgrade follows recent bridge-security concerns on BNB Chain, and broader industry attention on cross-chain bridges, which have been responsible for billions of dollars in cumulative losses through compromised keys, contract flaws and weak message verification. The Pasteur checks are therefore seen as a timely hardening step for one of the most active smart contract ecosystems.
