BSC (Binance Smart Chain) Kepler Hardfork To Go Live On Testnet

Key Takeaways:

• BSC Kepler Hardfork Revolutionizes Functionality: Scheduled for Mainnet activation on January 23, 2024, this hardfork aligns with Ethereum’s upgrades, marking a pivotal transition for Binance Smart Chain (BSC).
• Fast Finality Governance Enhancement (BEP-319): This upgrade aims to optimize BSC’s Fast Finality feature, incentivizing validators through community-driven voting, ensuring faster, reliable transaction confirmations, and maintaining network efficiency and trust.
• Ethereum Compatibility Upgrades: Integrating Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs) into BSC enhances smart contract development (BEP-216), controls resource consumption (BEP-217), optimizes transactions (BEP-311), and deprecates vulnerable opcodes (BEP-312), aligning BSC with Ethereum’s functionality.
• Seamless Transition for Stakeholders: Validator and node operators’ upgrade to Geth v1.3.6 before the specified block height is crucial for accommodating the upcoming Kepler Hardfork, ensuring network stability amid groundbreaking improvements.
• Transformative Milestone for BSC: Kepler Hardfork signifies BSC’s evolution, embracing innovation, interoperability, and community-driven progress. These enhancements bolster BSC’s technical capabilities, fortifying its position as a leading blockchain platform.

Introducing the BSC Kepler Hardfork

The upcoming Kepler Hardfork on Binance Smart Chain (BSC) is set to revolutionize the network’s functionalities, aligning closely with Ethereum’s Shanghai Upgrade. The testnet BSC Kepler Hardfork went live on December 19, 2023, at 1:30 pm IST, and this hardfork will go live on the Mainnet on January 23, 2024, also around 1:30 pm IST on that day. This hardfork brings forth pivotal changes crucial for the future of BSC.

BSC’s Kepler Hardfork is supporting fast finality governance and EVM compatibility following Ethereum’s Shanghai Upgrade!

📆 You can expect the Hardfork at the following times:

Testnet: Dec 19, 2023, 8:00 AM UTC
Mainnet: Jan 23, 2024, 8:00 AM UTChttps://t.co/c6z9kYlLoG

— BNB Chain (@BNBCHAIN) December 11, 2023

Key among these updates are enhancements specific to BSC, aiming to optimize the Fast Finality feature through BEP-319. This improvement focuses on incentivizing validators efficiently, ensuring faster and more reliable transaction confirmations. With the proposed adjustments governed through community voting, BSC aims to maintain network efficiency and trustworthiness. Additionally, the BSC Kepler Hardfork emphasizes Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) compatibility, integrating key upgrades from Ethereum’s EIPs (Ethereum Improvement Proposals) to ensure that seamless compatibility can be achieved.

Major Upgrades You Can Expect with BSC Kepler Hardfork

1. BEP-319: Enhancing Fast Finality Feature on BSC

One of the key enhancements introduced through the Kepler Hardfork revolves around BEP-319, which aims to optimize the Fast Finality feature unique to BSC. Fast Finality, enabled by BEP-126, allows for the finalization of blocks within approximately 7.5 seconds, ensuring rapid and reliable transaction confirmations.

However, to maintain network efficiency and trust, it’s crucial to incentivize validators adequately. BEP-319 proposes a mechanism governed by community voting to adjust validator rewards, ensuring their participation remains incentivized and responsive to evolving network dynamics. This upgrade aims to balance Fast Finality rewards between epochs, optimize reward governance, and extend deadlines for the submission of malicious voting evidence.

2. Ethereum Compatibility Upgrades

Ethereum Compatibility Upgrades:

BEP-216 will implement EIP-3855 PUSH0 instruction by adding `PUSH0` opcode to EVM, pushing byte 0 onto the stack.

This will help to boost smart contract efficiency, cost-effectively handling common value 🙌

— BNB Chain (@BNBCHAIN) December 11, 2023

The BSC Kepler Hardfork also emphasizes compatibility with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) by integrating several Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs) into BSC:

• BEP-216 (EIP-3855): Simplifying Smart Contract Development: One of the pivotal upgrades, BEP-216, is set to introduce a new Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) opcode known as “PUSH0”. This opcode will enable developers to streamline smart contract development by simplifying the process of pushing a common value, specifically the byte ‘0’, directly onto the stack. By offering a more straightforward method for manipulating data within contracts, this enhancement aims to optimize code efficiency and readability, fostering more agile and concise smart contract development practices.
• BEP-217 (EIP-3860): Enhancing Contract Creation: Another significant upgrade, BEP-217, focuses on controlling resource consumption during contract creation on the Binance Smart Chain. By imposing limits on “initcode” and introducing metering mechanisms for the initialization code, this improvement aims to curb excessive resource usage during contract deployment. The initiative strives to bolster network security and performance by preventing scenarios where contract creation processes monopolize resources, ensuring a more equitable distribution of network resources among all participants.
• BEP-311 (EIP-3651) and BEP-312 (EIP-6049): Transaction Optimization and Opcode Deprecation: BEP-311 introduces a novel transaction type that allows for optional access lists, designed to optimize gas costs and enhance transaction efficiency, particularly for complex operations. This innovation aims to pre-load specific slots, including the “COINBASE” address, mitigate gas costs, and streamline transaction execution for more intricate operations. On the other hand, BEP-312 signals a significant step toward Ethereum’s protocol evolution by announcing the deprecation of the “SELFDESTRUCT” opcode. This opcode has historically posed challenges related to state size management and security vulnerabilities within Ethereum. By deprecating this opcode, the network takes a proactive stride toward enhancing its security posture and operational robustness, paving the way for more secure and manageable operations within the ecosystem.

These Ethereum compatibility upgrades not only align Binance Smart Chain more closely with Ethereum’s functionality but also reinforce the network’s capabilities, offering developers more tools and resources to create robust, efficient, and secure decentralized applications (dApps) on the BSC platform.

To ensure a seamless transition and maintain network stability, all validators and node operators on BSC must upgrade their BSC Geth clients to the latest version, Geth v1.3.6, before the specified block height. This upgrade is pivotal for accommodating the upcoming BSC Kepler Hardfork and its associated improvements.

Read More: Ethereum Roadmap: Merge to Splurge

Conclusion

The BSC Kepler Hardfork has thus emerged as a transformative milestone for the Binance Smart Chain (BSC), heralding a new era of enhanced functionalities and expanded compatibility with Ethereum’s ecosystem. With an array of pivotal upgrades under BEP-319, emphasizing Fast Finality governance, and significant Ethereum compatibility improvements via BEP-216, BEP-217, BEP-311, and BEP-312, the BSC Kepler Hardfork propels BSC toward a more efficient, secure, and versatile decentralized landscape.

Through BEP-319, the BSC community embraces an evolved governance model for the Fast Finality feature, ensuring that validator rewards remain adaptive and responsive, optimizing transaction finalization speed and network trustworthiness. Meanwhile, the integration of Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs) solidifies BSC’s interoperability and synergy with Ethereum, empowering developers with streamlined smart contract development and transaction optimization capabilities.

The transition to Geth v1.3.6 marks a critical step for validators and node operators, ensuring seamless adaptation to the forthcoming BSC Kepler Hardfork. By staying updated with the latest advancements, stakeholders reinforce network stability and prepare the infrastructure for these groundbreaking improvements.

As Binance Smart Chain continues to evolve, the Kepler Hardfork is a testament to BSC’s commitment to innovation, interoperability, and community-driven progress. This milestone augments the network’s technical capabilities and fortifies its position as a leading blockchain platform, fostering a more robust, efficient, and interconnected decentralized ecosystem.

Additional Read: Top Binance Smart Chain Projects