BNB Chain (BSC) has witnessed a dramatic surge in gas fees, collecting nearly $15 million from users over the past 7 days—a staggering 400% increase. This surge is more than double Ethereum’s total during the same period, signaling a growing wave of memecoin speculation on the network.
To tackle the congestion caused by the spike in activity, BNB Chain rolled out its first optimization aimed at enhancing transaction efficiency. The new update prioritizes transactions interacting with time-sensitive contracts, like memecoin trades, ensuring high-value transactions are processed faster.
BNB Chain Introduces New Optimization for High-Volume Traffic BNB Chain’s latest optimization addresses congestion by altering how validators process transaction bids. Previously, validators would stop evaluating bids once they hit the block limit, with new blocks generated every 3 seconds. During high traffic, this meant some time-sensitive transactions, such as memecoin swaps, failed to get included in the blocks despite users paying higher gas fees.
BNB Chain explained, “This approach works well for most typical use cases. However, it’s not optimal for the fast-paced, high-stakes world of meme coin trading.”
With the new update, validators can now gather more bids within the same 3-second window, allowing higher-value transactions to potentially replace lower-priority ones. This enhancement is designed to improve block-building performance, especially during high-traffic periods.
BNB Chain stated, “This will allow validators to gather more bids, increasing the chance of incorporating the best ones and improving overall block building performance, especially during periods of high network activity.”
Historic Gas Fees and Market Activity on BNB Chain The surge in gas fees coincides with BNB’s recent price increase, reflecting historic activity levels on the network. Over the past week, BNB Chain users spent nearly $15 million in transaction fees, more than doubling Ethereum’s $7 million. Only Solana surpassed BNB Chain with $29 million in gas fees.
According to Nansen data, BNB Chain’s gas fees surged by 388% compared to the previous period. In contrast, other major blockchains like Solana, Ethereum, and Base experienced negative growth in transaction fees.
Nansen analyst Aurelie Barthere pointed to a potential catalyst behind BNB’s growth, noting, “BSC’s fees surged 114% over the past 7 days, while blockchains like Solana, Ethereum, and Base have seen negative growth. One potential catalyst for this growth could be the recent 60-day pause in Binance’s legal battle with the SEC, announced [Monday].”
As memecoin speculation continues to drive market activity on BNB Chain, these latest updates and strategic optimizations position the network to handle high volumes more efficiently, attracting more users seeking quick transactions in a fast-paced trading environment.
