The BNB Smart Chain’s Maxwell upgrade has officially gone live, slashing average block times to just 0.8 seconds from 1.5 seconds earlier this week.
Designed to significantly speed up the network, the Maxwell hard fork aimed to cut block times in half and introduce a range of performance enhancements.
According to BNB Chain, the upgrade will deliver faster transaction speeds for users, more responsive decentralized applications (DApps) for developers, reduced latency for DeFi protocols, improved scalability, enhanced validator synchronization, and overall network efficiency.
“This isn’t just another upgrade—it’s a technical leap forward for faster blocks, better validator coordination, and smoother network performance,” the BNB Chain team said in a statement.
According to a GitHub proposal, the Maxwell hard fork was scheduled to go live on June 30 at 2:30 a.m. UTC, following its initial testnet launch on May 26.
The hard fork aims to enhance messaging speed and efficiency
The Maxwell hard fork introduced three key proposals—BEP-524, BEP-563, and BEP-564—aimed at enhancing the BNB Chain’s speed and reliability, according to BNB Chain.
BEP-563 specifically focused on improving peer-to-peer messaging between validators, enabling faster block proposal communication, stabilizing the validator network, and minimizing the risk of missed votes or synchronization delays.
“This reduces the risk of missed votes or delayed proposals—key for hitting that 0.75s target,” the BNB Chain team noted.
BEP-564 introduces two new message types to the protocol: GetBlocksByRangeMsg, which allows multiple recent blocks to be requested in a single call, and RangeBlocksMsg, which returns all the requested blocks in one response.
According to the BNB Chain team, this enhancement “significantly improves sync speeds across the network.”
Meanwhile, BEP-524 focuses on reducing block times even further. Building on the Lorentz upgrade in April—which cut block times from three seconds to 1.5—BEP-524 continues the trend toward faster block production.
Developers and validators are advised to get ready for the changes
Ahead of the upgrade, the BNB Chain team advised developers to test their DApps under the new, faster block intervals, update any components relying on the previous 1.5-second timing, and thoroughly review any time-based logic in their code.
“If something breaks, it’s probably your code — not the chain,” the team warned.
Validators were also urged to benchmark their systems for 0.75-second block times and prepare for increased message throughput and quicker consensus cycles.
BNB Price Rises Ahead of Maxwell Upgrade
BNB, the native token of BNB Chain, saw a price boost leading up to the Maxwell upgrade. Over the past week, it gained 6.5%, fluctuating between a low of $617 and a high of $655.
In the last 24 hours, BNB is up 1.2%, trading at $655.70 and moving within a narrow range of $647 to $656, according to CoinGecko data. Despite the recent momentum, the token remains 17% below its all-time high of $788, reached on December 4.
