- opBNB is an optimistic rollup.
- It uses different tricks and techniques to increase BNB Smart Chain’s throughput and lower the costs as much as possible.
- There are multiple benefits opBNB brings to the table for users and developers.
Binance’s BNB Smart Chain is one of the most used blockchains in the crypto industry. However, even BNB Smart Chain is facing scalability issues.
That’s why the team behind the blockchain has just released opBNB, an optimistic rollup that is currently in testnet, sits on top of BNB Smart Chain, and is capable of doubling its transaction throughput.
Let’s look at how opBNB does that.
How opBNB Doubles BNB Smart Chain’s Transaction Throughput
First, opBNB is a fork of Optimism, the popular Ethereum Layer-2 scaling solution. Optimistic scaling projects like Optimism, Arbitrum, or opBNB are all rollups, meaning they reduce the computational load on the main chain by executing transactions off-chain and only posting transaction data on-chain as calldata.
But opBNB takes a step further. By making data access easier, improving the cache system, and adjusting the submission process algorithm to allow simultaneous operations, opBNB can push the gas limit up to 100M, compared to 30M on Optimism.
This means that opBNB can double BNB Smart Chain’s transaction throughput from 2,000 transactions per second to 4,000.
At the same time, because of the novel way opBNB approaches optimistic rollup architecture, opBNB can keep the average cost of a transaction below $0.005.
What Does It Mean for Users and Developers?
There are many benefits associated with opBNB’s scalability mechanism. First, for users, this means that they can transact on BNB Smart Chain much faster than previously.
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As for costs, $0.005 is negligible compared to what other layer 1s and even traditional payment providers offer; $0.005 is almost the same as $0.
For developers, this means they no longer need to worry about their projects clogging the network, thus ensuring smooth and uninterrupted operations. On top of that, it becomes more feasible for developers to create and run applications, especially those that require high-frequency micro-transactions.
On the Flipside
- Some argue that since BNB Smart Chain is centralized, there’s no reason to implement rollups that rely on the security of the underlying layer.
- opBNB is still on testnet and the numbers provided above might change once deployed on the BNB Smart Chain mainnet.
Why This Matters
Increasing the scalability of BNB Smart Chain can help drive crypto adoption, especially knowing how popular BNB Smart Chain is among crypto users.
Read more about Ethereum Layer-2 tokens struggling:
Ethereum Layer-2 Tokens Struggle as ARB Hits All-Time Low
Read more about Arbitrum’s venture into web3 gaming:
Arbitrum Taps into Web3 Gaming with Layer-3 Xai Announcement
