The developers of BNB Chain’s opBNB are charting an ambitious course to more than double transaction speed and reduce network fees by 90%, according to their new technical roadmap.
As part of the roadmap, the plan outlines increasing processing speed to 10,000 transactions per second (TPS) from its current 4,000 and reducing the cost to $0.0005 within six months. The first fee reduction, from $0.005 to $0.001, is scheduled for December 4.
Built on Optimism’s OP Stack, the opBNB network aims to be one of the fastest layer-2 networks, competing with popular offshoot Arbitrum, which claims a capability of 40,000 TPS.
A layer 2 network operates off-chain, layered on top of a base blockchain (layer-1). The OP Stack represents the software behind Optimism, an Ethereum layer-2 blockchain, providing developers with tools to create their own networks.
Since its release in September, opBNB has seen a steady increase in user numbers. Transactions hit a record 5.4 million last week, pushing lifetime transactions past 20 million. The network achieved a peak of 645 minting transactions per second.
The developers anticipate doubling opBNB’s gas limit per block to 200 million per second. The gas limit refers to the maximum price a user is willing to pay for a transaction, and higher limits can enhance transactional processing during periods of high demand.
These upgrades are scheduled over the next year and are poised to position opBNB to support on-chain games and high-frequency decentralized finance (DeFi) applications.