BNB Chain Activates Jenner Hardfork on Testnet to Secure Payment Lanes

The core of the update, governed by BEP-703, establishes a Payment Lane that sets aside 5% of each block’s gas limit for qualifying transactions. This reserved space prevents general network activity from crowding out essential transfers, such as native BNB movements to basic accounts or transactions directed to governance-approved payment contracts. While the default reservation is fixed at 5%, network governance retains the authority to scale this allocation up to 10% based on demand.

Transactions eligible for this reserved capacity are strictly defined, covering native BNB transfers to non-contract addresses and interactions with a whitelist of payment contracts maintained by governance. Notably, if reserved capacity remains unused, it cannot be repurposed for general traffic, a design choice intended to ensure that block producers cannot prioritize bulk transactions at the expense of payment reliability. Beyond the Payment Lane, the Jenner upgrade introduces millisecond block timestamps for smart contracts and lays the infrastructure for the new CAS20 asset standard. Node operators are currently testing these features ahead of a projected mainnet rollout, following a third quarter that saw BNB Chain process over 1.5 billion transactions.