BNB Chain Completes Lorentz Mainnet Hard Fork, Reducing Block Times to 1.5 Seconds

The BNB Chain has completed the Lorentz mainnet hard fork, a significant technical leap forward for both BNB Smart Chain (BSC) and OpBNB.

With the upgrade, the network reduces BSC block times to 1.5 seconds, while OpBNB now boasts 0.5-second blocks, making it one of the fastest Layer-2 (L2) networks.

"This upgrade is expected to significantly improve transaction confirmation speed, enable more responsive decentralized applications (dApps), and enhance the overall user experience," the network said.

The Lorentz upgrade is said to build on momentum from the Pascal hard fork, which laid the groundwork for this new era of performance improvements.

These upgrades aim to position BNB Chain as a top-tier ecosystem for developers and users seeking high throughput and low latency.

"Lorentz at 1.5s blocks? Solana already does 0.4s. But Maxwell is at 0.75s… BNB’s roadmap is evolution on crack," said one user.

Despite this news, BNB’s price is up by a modest 0.29% in the last 24 hours. As of writing, it was trading for $608.22.

While BNB Chain enjoys smooth progress, Ethereum’s upcoming Fusaka hard fork has been mired in internal controversy, particularly over the now-scrapped EVM Object Format (EOF) upgrade.

Originally slated to be part of Fusaka, EOF aimed to modernize Ethereum’s virtual machine (EVM) architecture, potentially simplifying future upgrades and improving developer tooling.

However, in a post on Monday, April 28, Ethereum Foundation executive Tomasz Kajetan Stańczak clarified that EOF would not be part of the upcoming May 7 Pectra upgrade, and its inclusion in Fusaka is still under discussion.

“The Pectra upgrade does not include EOF, nor is it planned to include EOF. Everything on Pectra is going as planned for the May 7th release,” Stańczak stated.

In a follow-up post, Ethereum core developer Tim Beiko confirmed that EOF has been removed from Fusaka, citing concerns over complexity and potential delays.

“EOF has been removed from the Fusaka network upgrade today,” Beiko stated.

The decision follows contentious developer calls, with strong disagreements over whether the EOF was technically necessary or a symbolic improvement.

“EOF is probably dead due to a lack of rough consensus. This is a massive milestone … symbolic of Ethereum evolving toward maximal consideration of user impact,” said Storm, a data researcher at Paradigm.

Some developers expressed concerns that EOF added too much complexity and could hamper future maintainability. Others argued that dropping EOF shifts the focus toward user-centric governance rather than strictly adhering to prior technical roadmaps.

Proponents of EOF believe it would have made Ethereum’s core system cleaner and more modular, aligning with the Ethereum Foundation’s vision of the platform as the “world computer of humanity” and an “infinite garden” that supports sustainable, decentralized growth.

However, with Fusaka now set for Q3 or Q4 2025, likely in September or October, the Ethereum community will continue debating what constitutes necessary innovation versus over-engineering.

In the short term, the contrast between BNB Chain’s rapid technical advancements and Ethereum’s philosophical debates highlight two approaches to blockchain evolution—one focused on speed and optimization, and the other on resilience and social consensus.