Binance-Backed Blockchain Completes Hard Fork to Mitigate Future Cross-Chain Bridge Hacks

The Bnb Smart Chain commenced the blockchain’s hard fork on October 12, at block height 22,107,423, in order to add a security patch to “mitigate the cross-chain infrastructure between [the] Beacon Chain and Smart Chain.” Binance and the Bnb Smart Chain suspended withdrawals and deposits on Wednesday in order to execute the upgrade. Not too long after, Binance noted that the upgrade was complete a touch after 5 a.m. (ET) on Wednesday morning.

Bnb Smart Chain Hard Forks to Apply Exploit Patch

Five days ago, the Bnb Smart Chain was exploited for roughly $100 million and the chain was paused in order to address the issue. At the time, the hacker managed to leverage phony security proofs to exploit the blockchain network’s cross-chain bridge. Following the hack, Binance announced that it planned to support an upgrade on October 12 that will add a security patch to the protocol that addresses the issue.

“Fellow Binancians, Binance will support the BNB Smart Chain (BEP20) network upgrade and hard fork,” the exchange wrote on October 11. “The BNB Smart Chain (BEP20) network upgrade and hard fork will take place at the BNB Smart Chain block height of 22,107,423, or approximately at 2022-10-12 08:00 (UTC). Deposits and withdrawals on BNB Smart Chain (BEP20) will be suspended starting from approximately 2022-10-12 07:00 (UTC),” Binance added.

Binance further announced the halting of deposits and withdrawals via Twitter when it said: “Binance has temporarily suspended deposits and withdrawals for BNB Smart Chain (BEP20) network to support the network upgrade [and] hard fork.” At approximately 5:16 a.m. (ET) Binance explained that the Bnb Smart Chain has resumed operations following the upgrade. “Thank you for your patience and apologies for any inconvenience caused,” the world’s largest exchange by trade volume tweeted.

While four tokens out of the top five by market cap have seen small percentage gains on Wednesday, the price of BNB has declined 0.4% against the U.S. dollar during the past 24 hours. BNB has had a 24-hour price range between $269.98 and $273.67 per unit on October 12.

BNB/USD chart on October 12, 2022 at around 11:07 a.m. (ET).

BNB is the fifth largest crypto asset by market capitalization and it is down 60% since the asset’s all-time high (ATH). Although, 60% down from BNB’s ATH is a lot better than the 70% to 90%+ losses a great deal of other digital assets have recorded since their ATHs.