Maxwell hardfork goes live on BNB Chain mainnet — Here’s what you should know

Key Points

1. The upgrade involves three proposals (BEP-524, BEP-563, BEP-564) targeting block time reduction, block cycle enhancement, and node-to-node syncing efficiency.

2. Block times will decrease from 1.5 seconds to 0.75 seconds, following the April Lorentz hardfork which previously reduced them from 3 seconds.

3. The upgrade modifies consensus parameters, doubling epoch length to 1000 and increasing validator turn length to 16 blocks (12 seconds under new timing), with fast finality achievable in under 2 seconds.

4. The changes will require MEV builders and arbitrage searchers to adjust strategies due to sub-second block times.

5. BNB's price rose 1% to $654 at press time, with daily trading volume up 28% and derivatives volume surging 57.5% to $318.5 million in 24 hours.