BNB Chain 2023: What is the future of Binance Blockchain?

BNB Chain , formerly known as Binance Smart Chain. Since its release in 2020, BNB Chain has become one of the most prominent Layer 1 blockchains as an Ethereum alternative with lower fees and faster transaction speeds. In the past few years, despite being plagued by scam projects and high centralization, it has largely maintained its position as a top blockchain due to the support of Binance . Let's review their roadmap for 2023 and see how BNB Chain maintains its position as a top blockchain amid fierce competition.

BNB Chain was originally created to take advantage of Ethereum's congestion issues. In 2020, it is very expensive to transact on Ethereum, with operations such as decentralized transactions costing upwards of $100 in fees. To address this issue, Binance launched Binance Smart Chain, which is designed to be compatible with Ethereum's virtual machine, the EVM, meaning that any application deployed on Ethereum can be easily migrated to BSC. It achieves low fees and fast transaction times by sacrificing decentralization, as there are only 21 validators responsible for running the network. In comparison, Bitcoin has 16,000 and Ethereum has 500,000 validating nodes.

Despite potential centralization and censorship issues, the blockchain has thrived, with retail traders seeking to use DeFi applications without paying high fees flocking to the chain. Naturally, where retail traders go, scams follow. BNB Chain has been rife with meme coins, runaway scams, and various other scam projects. Despite this, the chain still has high transaction volume and about 1 million daily active users.

Since the launch of BNB Chain, some of the Layer 1 blockchains that have been launched have also begun to compete directly with BNB Chain. For example, Avalanche , Solana , Aptos , and Fantom. In addition, the launch of Ethereum's Layer 2 versions (such as Optimism and Arbitrum ) provides traders with almost the same decentralization and security as Ethereum, while also providing low fees and fast transaction services. The emergence of Layer 2 also threatens the feasibility and value proposition of BNB Chain. To this end, BNB Chain has released a 2023 roadmap with some milestone goals.

BNB Chain has six major focuses in 2023: scalability, multi-chain solutions, decentralized data economy, security, greater decentralization, and mass adoption of infrastructure.

BNB Chain plans to continue improving its virtual machine to address its scalability and multi-chain solution topics, thereby achieving greater transaction throughput. They also plan to implement Rollups based on zero-knowledge proofs, allowing certain specific applications to run more efficiently. Optimistic Rollups will also be implemented, allowing applications to create a more sovereign chain supported by the BNB base chain. In addition, BNB Chain also plans to implement EIP-4844, an upgrade of Ethereum, commonly known as proto-danksharding, which will reduce the fees of Rollups. These upgrades will help BNB Chain achieve its goal of more than 5,000 transactions per second by the end of 2023.

BNB Greenfield is the decentralized storage network that BNB Chain is trying to create. Its goal is to allow users to upload, own and share data-based assets through the transparency and decentralization provided by public blockchains. In addition, the user experience will be no different from existing cloud hosting services such as Dropbox or Amazon Web Services.

On a blockchain known for scams, security is a top priority. AvengerDAO 2.0 is the result of a collaboration between Web3 Security and BNB Chain, and is designed to reduce the risk of malicious behavior. It has features including monitoring and assessing the security of smart contracts, notifying users of potential malicious activity, and providing a vault for locking and transferring funds.

BNB Chain currently has 29 active validators, and BNB Chain hopes to expand to 100 active validators by the end of this year. Considering their goal of improving scalability in the same time window, this may be difficult to achieve, but it will be a great feat if completed. BNB Chain also hopes to introduce other consensus mechanisms and allow community validators to join. Finally, there will be an emphasis on on-chain governance to increase transparency and accountability of the chain's activities.

With its large user base (mainly composed of retail traders rather than financial institutions), infrastructure is critical to the success of BNB Chain. Some areas that BNB Chain will focus on in 2023 include account abstraction, developer-friendly tools, Web3 identity, messaging and communication, and gaming infrastructure. These features and tools will help developers and users have a more convenient experience on the chain.

BNB Chain’s ambitious roadmap includes several important improvements that could potentially transform BNB Chain from a “meme coin” on the L1 network to a legitimate technical competitor. It would appear that their goals will be difficult to achieve, especially considering their plans to increase decentralization and transaction throughput. While it remains to be seen whether they will be able to achieve their goals, it is reassuring for BNB holders that the BNB Chain team is emphasizing important infrastructure and technical developments.