About

BNB Chain is a blockchain network developed by Binance, designed for smart contracts, decentralized applications (dApps), and digital asset transactions. It consists of BNB Smart Chain (BSC), which supports scalable application development, and BNB Beacon Chain, which handles governance and staking functionalities.

History

Binance was co-founded by Changpeng Zhao and Yi He in July 2017 with the vision to “increase the freedom of money globally.” Within 180 days of its launch, Binance had become the world’s largest digital asset exchange. When it first launched, only five tokens were offered for trading: BTC, ETH, LTC, NEO, and BNB. The exchange originally operated out of Hong Kong (China); however, due to an increase in the country’s laws against crypto assets, the headquarters were moved to Japan, then Malta, and later the Cayman Islands. Notably, Zhao claimed no identifiable headquarters exists.

As of April 2024, Binance remains the world’s largest digital asset exchange by volume and supports over 500 crypto assets. In addition, the BNB token is fully functional and can be used for staking, delegating stake, governance, payment, and being earned as a rebate/reward through several exchange offerings.

Notable milestones in the project’s history include:

• July 2017 - BNB is launched on Ethereum as an ERC-20 token.
• April 2019 - BNB Beacon Chain (formerly “Binance Chain”) was created, and the BNB token was migrated as the network’s native token.
• May 2019 - The first publicly disclosed hack of Binance occurred, which saw 7,000.00 BTC stolen (~$40.00 million at that time).
• September 2019 - Binance launches BUSD, a USD-backed stablecoin, in partnership with Paxos.
• September 2019 - Binance launches Binance.US to service the United States.
• August 2020 - BNB Smart Chain was launched to enable Binance exposure to DeFi protocols and compete with other Layer-1s as a smart contract platform.
• October 2021 - The BEP-95 upgrade introduced a burn mechanism that burns a percentage of all network transaction fees.
• February 2022 - “Binance Chain” and “Binance Smart Chain” are “merged” to form BNB Chain.
• September 2022 - The initial iteration of Avenger DAO is launched.
• October 2022 - An exploit occurred in which a hacker stole 1.00 million BNB from a bridge between BNB Chain and several other blockchains.
• February 2023 - Paxos was ordered by the New York Department of Financial Services to stop issuing BUSD.
• March 2023 - The United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) charged Changpeng Zhao, Samuel Lin, Binance Holding Limited, and other related entities with CEA and CFTC regulations violations.
• June 2023 - The United States SEC files a complaint against Binance Holdings Limited, Bam Trading Service Inc., Bam Management US Holdings Inc., and Changpeng Zhao.
• August 2023 - BNB Smart Chain underwent two hard forks: Plato completed the second part of implementing a Fast Finality Mechanism approved in BEP-126, and Hertz introduced features similar to Ethereum’s London and Berlin upgrades, although it did not include a burn mechanism.
• September 2023 - opBNB’s mainnet launches for general access.
• October 2023 - BNB Greenfield launches for public use.
• November 2023 - Binance Holdings Limited plead guilty to charges brought forth by the United States Department of Justice regarding violations of the Bank Secrecy Act and International Emergency Economic Powers Act, settling for over $4.00 billion.
• November 2023 - Changpeng Zhao steps down as Binance CEO and is replaced by Richard Teng.
• January 2024 - The Keplr (Shanghai) hard fork was finalized on BNB Smart Chain.
• February 2024 - The United States National Institute of Standards and Technology began investigating a vulnerability in the iOS version of the Binance Trust Wallet.
• April 2024 - BNB Beacon Chain’s mainnet initiated a hard fork at block height 373,526,985, implementing the first milestone of BEP-333.

Beginning on April 16, 2024, the four hard forks required to merge BNB Smart Chain and BNB Beacon Chain in accordance with BEP-333: Chain Fusion are being progressively implemented. This process will see key features of BNB Beacon Chain (e.g., cryptoassets, staking abilities, and governance abilities) migrated to BNB Smart Chain, with BNB Beacon Chain eventually being sunset. Details regarding each step are listed below:

• BNB Beacon Chain First Sunset Fork (April 15, 2024) - Disables cryptocurrency issuance and minting features on BNB Beacon Chain.
• BNB Smart Chain Feynman Hard Fork (April 18, 2024) - Enables validator creation and governance functionality on BNB Smart Chain.
• BNB Beacon Chain Second Sunset Fork (May 2024 - Unscheduled) - Disables governance and delegation capabilities on BNB Beacon Chain.
• BNB Beacon Chain Final Sunset Fork (May 2024 - Unscheduled) - Halts BNB Beacon Chain and disables cross-chain communication to BNB Smart Chain.

On Jan. 31, 2024, the project team also released the 2024 Roadmap. This plan divides the intended technical upgrades of the network into six categories. Notable concepts within each category are as follows:

• Progressive Decentralization - Merging BNB Beacon Chain into BNB Smart Chain and increasing the total number of active validators on the merged chain from 40 to 100.
• High-Performance EVMs - Releasing Parallel EVM 3.0.
• Scalability - Increasing opBNB gas limit to 200.00 million (10,000.00 TPS) and lowering the gas fee to $0.0001 or less.
• Decentralized Data Economy - Upgrading BNB Greenfield to V2.0 and using it as the ecosystem’s data availability layer.
• Security - Avenger DAO 3.0.
• BNB Mass Adoption Infrastructure - Creating fully onchain games and adding Decentralized Social (DeSoc) and Decentralized Physical Infrastructure (DePIN) protocols.

A commercially reasonable search found no planned launch date for any of the 2024 Roadmap features.

Lastly, the project team plans to introduce zkBNB, a Layer-2 scaling solution for BNB Chain utilizing zk-rollup technology, allowing developers to build larger applications with access to higher throughput and lower transaction fees. The network was first announced in October 2023, and the mainnet was originally intended to launch in Q1 2023. As of April 2024, only zkBNB’s testnet is live, and a commercially reasonable search did not uncover any specific reason for the postponement.

In April 2024 BNB Beacon Chain started series of sunset upgrades, with the first being at block height 373,526,985 to implement the first milestone of BEP-333. Governance and staking have moved to BSC, and the BNB Beacon Chain has been shut down.

In July 2025 Binance has introduced a TGE model on Binance Wallet that uses a bonding curve pricing mechanism. Developed in collaboration with Four.Meme, this model allows users to purchase tokens using BNB, with prices adjusting based on the number of tokens bought.

In October 2025, that President Donald Trump signed an order to grant a pardon to Changpeng Zhao, founder and former CEO of Binance. The pardon follows Zhao’s 2023 conviction for failing to maintain an effective AML program.