The Binance ecosystem faced numerous challenges in 2023, ranging from regulatory crackdowns to an increasing number of hacks. However, there were signs that the crypto behemoth’s situation was improving.
According to Token Terminal, BNB Chain [BNB] saw a noticeable increase in transaction fees collected on the platform, with a weekly growth rate of more than 6%. The increase was caused by increased network traffic, as the number of daily active users on the chain increased by nearly 5% during the same period.
BNB Chain’s recent decision to reduce transaction costs by 40% could have played a significant role in luring users to its network. There was, however, more to look forward to.
On April 27, the BNB Smart Chain performed the ‘Luban’ hard fork on its testnet, which was expected to bring a slew of improvements and new features.
The most notable of these was the BEP-126, which introduced a fast finality mechanism. This change would allow for block finality to be reached in two blocks, reducing the likelihood of chain reorganization.
The fast finality capability, however, will not be fully activated until the Plato upgrade.
Another enhancement, the BEP-174, will include a new governance proposal to improve relayer whitelist management by introducing Relayer Managers. BEP-221 will also include a new precompiled contract to validate the CometBFT light blocks.
Though the Luban Upgrade was only available on the testnet, there were reasons to believe that it would be available on the mainnet soon, as evidenced by the increase in BNB development activity. This metric reflects a network’s commitment to improving product capabilities.
Big addresses reacted to these ecosystem updates by stockpiling BNB tokens in their portfolios. The supply held by large addresses, which had been stagnant until 22 April, has recently increased.
Nonetheless, it was insufficient to change investors’ perceptions. This was evident as the weighted sentiment trended negatively. According to CoinMarketCap data, BNB was trading at $320.52 at press time, down more than 3% in the previous 24 hours.
