Binance Unleashes opBNB: A New Optimism Chain

Binance's blockchain, BNB Chain, has created a new chain named opBNB to improve its scalability, which means it can handle more transactions at once. Launched on June 19, opBNB is in its test phase. It uses the Optimism OP Stack technology to make the Binance blockchain network more secure and able to handle more transactions.

OpBNB is designed to work well with Ethereum-based contracts, networks, and token standards. At present, BNB Chain can handle around 2,000 transactions per second, each costing about $0.10.

Binance claims that opBNB can manage more than 4,000 transfer transactions per second, each costing less than $0.005. The new chain also improves access to data, cache management, and the process of submitting transactions. It increases the "gas limit" (the maximum amount of work that can be included in a block) to 100 million from the 30 million limit set by Optimism.

Binance sees opBNB as a solution to the issue of scalability, which is one of the obstacles to the widespread use of blockchain technology. OpBNB uses a technology called Optimistic Rollups to handle more transactions, with the assumption that data processed off the main chain is valid until shown otherwise. The system has a user-friendly interface that simplifies the integration process, helping developers to concentrate on building applications without worrying about complex scaling issues.

However, some people have doubts about opBNB, including Adam Cochran from Cinneamhain Ventures. He said that BNB Chain's scaling problems arose because it was too centralized and its gas limit was raised to a risky level. He suggested that Binance could have used other options, like becoming a "superchain" on Optimism, becoming a layer-2 on Ethereum, or a layer-3 on Optimism or Arbitrum.

According to data from DefiLlama, BNB Chain is the third largest blockchain in terms of the total value locked in DeFi (decentralized finance), after Ethereum and Tron. It has a total value of $3.38 billion, a daily volume of $264 million, and nearly a million users every day.