BNB Smart Chain Testnet Gibbs Upgrade Announcement

BNB Smart Chain Chapel Testnet is expected to have a scheduled hardfork upgrade named Gibbs at block height 22,800,220. The current block generation speed forecasts this to occur around 13 Sep. 2022 at 7:00 AM (UTC). The validators and full node operators on Testnet should switch their software version to  v1.1.13 by September 13th.

1. Background Story

1.1 Who is Josiah Willard Gibbs?

This upgrade is named after Josiah Willard Gibbs in honor of his significant theoretical contributions to physics, chemistry, and mathematics. His work on the applications of thermodynamics was instrumental in transforming physical chemistry into a rigorous inductive science. Together with James Clerk Maxwell and Ludwig Boltzmann, he created statistical mechanics.

1.2 What is a hardfork upgrade?

A hardfork is an upgrade that is not compatible with the previous release because some breaking changes are introduced in the latest release. A hardfork in BNB Smart Chain requires more than half of all validators to successfully upgrade to keep making blocks. If the existing full nodes in the network do not upgrade, they will not be able to receive and execute further blocks normally after the hardfork block height.

1.3 What happens during a network upgrade?

Logic changes will occur at block height 19,203,503 for this upgrade. After the activation of the upgrade, the blockchain is able to handle a series of new features and bug fixes.

2. How does this upgrade affect me?

2.1 As a full node operator, what do I have to do?

This release is breaking and you need to switch to v1.1.13. Upgrade instructions are (all the below should be done before the hardfork block height):

1. If your node is already synced with the network, please download and compile the latest version
2. Stop the geth process and restart it with v1.1.13.

2.2 What will happen if I forget to upgrade my full node in time?

If you cannot upgrade your software, you cannot sync with the upgraded BNB Smart Chain peer/validator nodes. You will not be able to connect or send transactions.

How to recover?

1. Download and compile the latest version v1.1.13.
2. Stop the geth process and restart it with v1.1.13.

2.3 As a developer, what do I have to do?

There are no changes to the EVM module. You do not need to do anything.

3. Upcoming Changes

3.1 BEP-153 Native Staking module on BSC

Before this BEP, BNB holders could only stake their assets on the BNB Beacon Chain. It means that if their assets are on the BNB Smart Chain, they have to transfer their assets across-chain to the BNB Beacon Chain first, which is not user-friendly enough.

This BEP introduces a new staking system contract on the BSC side, all staking-related operations on the BSC side should be initiated through this contract, and then applied across-chain to BNB Beacon Chain through the native cross-chain communication mechanism. With this BEP, the BNB holders can stake on the BSC directly, and dApps can launch their staking service based on the protocol introduced by this BEP, which can diversify the BSC ecosystem.

Check BEP-153 for more details.

3.2 Other Notable Changes

IMPROVEMENT

• #952 improve trie prefetch efficiency
• #975 broadcast block before commit block to reduce blocking time
• #992 enable trie prefetcher during pipecommit
• #996 reuse the execution results of state prefetch to enhance the trie prefetch
• #1068 core trie rlp: patches from go-ethereum

Release v1.1.13 also fix a critical memory leakage issue, check PR #1070.

Follow us to stay updated on everything BNB Chain!

Website | Twitter | Telegram | Youtube | Discord | Reddit | Build N' Build Forum