The BNB Chain will undergo a hard fork that will feature upgrades to improve the network’s security. 

The hard fork, named “ZhangHeng” after a Chinese scientist who lived during the Han dynasty, will require two-thirds of all BNB validators to upgrade their nodes.

The upgrade is scheduled to take place at block height 328,088,888, which developers expect will occur on July 19 at 6:00 UTC.

One of the key upgrades includes the BEP-255 proposal which implements on-chain asset reconciliation on the BNB Chain to improve security. 

“User balance changes are tracked in each block and will be reconciled to identify issues. When there are reconciliation errors, the blockchain will panic and stop producing new blocks,” said the BNB developers in a blog post.

The developers see the blockchain halt as a drastic, but necessary, step to protect the chain and its users in the event of an exploit. In effect, the halt would impact downstream services like blockchain bridges, deposits and withdrawals on exchanges, making it significantly harder for attackers to move assets. 

The BNB Chain was forced to suspend the network after a $100 million cross-chain bridge exploit that took place in October 2022.

The hard fork also introduces a bug fix to prevent potential “Rogue Key Attacks,” in which an exploiter creates a valid aggregate signature for a transaction without being the true owner of the private keys. 

Last month, BNB Chain launched a testnet of a Layer 2 solution called opBNB, built on Optimism’s OP stack. The Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) compatible chain would aim to achieve higher throughput, lower fees and enhanced scalability.