BNB Chain has activated its Jenner hardfork on the BNB Smart Chain testnet. The upgrade adds Payment Lane, which reserves part of each block's gas capacity for eligible payments. Governance controls both the reserved share and the list of qualifying contracts.
BNB Chain activated the Jenner hardfork on its BSC testnet, adding a mechanism that reserves 5% of block gas capacity for eligible transactions when the network is congested. According to BNB Chain's October 29 announcement, the upgrade also brings millisecond block timestamps for smart contracts and functionality for CAS20, a new compliant asset standard.
The mainnet rollout was previously targeted for late November.
Payment Lane sets aside block space for payments
Payment Lane runs through BEP-703, which sets separate gas accounting rules for eligible payments and general transactions. During periods of heavy network activity, transactions compete for block space under the network's existing fee rules, but the new mechanism reserves a portion of each block that general transactions cannot use.
The default reservation is 5% of a block's gas limit, though qualifying payments are not capped at that share. In BNB Chain's example, a block with a 100 million gas limit would reserve 5 million gas for payments. If payments use 8 million, they can draw on capacity beyond the reservation.
Unused reserved space does not pass to other traffic. If eligible payments consume only 2 million gas, the remaining 3 million stays unused even when other transactions wait.
Two transaction types qualify
The first category covers transactions sent directly to payment contracts on a governance-managed list. The second covers native BNB transfers of a nonzero amount to accounts without deployed code.
Contract creation, blob transactions, and type 0x04 transactions stay classified as general traffic. For a stablecoin, eligibility depends on whether the receiving contract appears on the approved list, and the list will initially be empty.
Governance can raise the reservation to 10%
Governance can raise the reserved share to a maximum of 10%. Payment Lane does not guarantee inclusion in a particular block or remove transaction fees, and eligible payments keep competing with one another when their combined demand exceeds the reserved capacity.
The upgrade follows a quarter in which BNB Chain recorded 1.51 billion transactions in Q3 2026, up 7.5% from the previous quarter. Network revenue rose 54% to $54.2 million. Average daily active addresses fell 14% to 2.10 million.
Developers and payment providers can now use the testnet to check transaction destinations, supported transaction formats, and governance listing requirements.
Source: crypto.news
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