Bnb Chain Targets ‘around One Second’ Finality With Fermi Hard Fork - Full Analysis

BNB Chain’s Fermi hard fork goes live on Wednesday, cutting BSC block times from 0.75 seconds to 0.45 seconds and tightening fast-finality rules.

BNB Chain’s Fermi upgrade, which goes live Wednesday, will cut BNB Smart Chain (BSC) block times from 0.75 seconds to 0.45 seconds and push transaction finality to “around one second,” positioning the network as one of the fastest major Ethereum Virtual Machine chains.

The hard fork completes the final phase of BNB Chain’s “short block interval” roadmap and is framed as a performance and reliability upgrade rather than a cosmetic tweak.

With Fermi, BSC validators will produce blocks every 0.45 seconds, almost halving the time it takes for transactions to be confirmed onchain.

Nina Rong, executive director of growth at BNB Chain, told Cointelegraph that the goal is “faster without compromising reliability,” pairing shorter blocks with strengthened fast-finality rules so confirmation guarantees remain predictable even under congestion.

The upgrade refines the network’s consensus rules so validators stay in sync despite the tighter block schedule. According to BNB Chain’s documentation, Fermi also introduces stricter propagation and voting parameters intended to reduce finality delays when the network is busy.

Related: BNB Chain Fermi hard fork scheduled for January activation

BNB Chain is pitching Fermi squarely at latency-sensitive applications including onchain trading, real-time decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols and interactive gaming decentralized applications (DApps).

Rong said the upgrade is designed to improve “real-world performance, not just peak throughput,” targeting conditions where network activity spikes and confirmation times need to remain stable for users and traders.

​Most DApps and smart contracts will not need code changes, and the transition is expected to be largely seamless for end users. Still, Rong noted that teams relying on precise block timing should re-check their assumptions, as blocks will now arrive significantly faster than before.

Source: CoinTelegraph