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Binance Global Inc., the operator of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, says it successfully completed a hard fork of its BNB Smart Chain (BSC) network around 5 p.m. Hong Kong on Wednesday.
Fast facts
- A hard fork is a split in a blockchain to make a change on the blockchain protocol, creating a new one in the process and rendering the older one invalid. This is typically done to address a technological problem or shortcoming on the network.
- The network was forked in the upgrade v1.1.16 to address a software weakness that allowed US$100 million to be drained from the network in an Oct. 6 hack. It does not replace the missing funds from the network.
- The BNB community will hold a vote in the coming days on how to address the hacked funds, including whether or not to freeze them, or use BNB’s burn protocol to cover the missing funds.
- Initially, the value of the exploited funds was much higher as the hackers drained 2 million BNB tokens worth more than US$570 million at the time from the cross-chain bridge, BSC Token Hub. BNB developers were able to halt the network in time to prevent all but US$100 million from leaving the network.
- While this action prevented the loss of more funds from the network, it has raised a debate about the level of decentralization on the BSC network.
- BNB developers have announced that cross-chain transactions should now be operating as normal after lengthy delays resulting from the service outage.