BNB Chain outlines new Layer-1 for AI-driven and high-frequency trading
AI & Agents ·
Developers unveiled a 2026 technical roadmap for a second, parallel blockchain designed for automated trading and quantum-era security, with testnet slated for late 2026 and mainnet in early 2027.
BNB Chain has set out plans for an additional layer-1 network built specifically to handle rapid-fire trading, automated payments, and transactions initiated by AI agents, according to Decrypt. The chain would operate alongside the existing BNB Smart Chain rather than replace it, with a testnet expected by the close of 2026 and a full mainnet rollout targeted for early 2027, a timeline also noted by The Block.
The stated performance goals are steep: developers say the network should eventually process more than 100,000 transactions per second, confirm activity in under 50 milliseconds, and finalize blocks in less than a second. To get there, the design relies on parallel transaction processing and reworked methods for storing and verifying data.
A core piece of the plan is a system called TxStream, which does away with the public mempool where unconfirmed transactions normally sit visible to onlookers. Instead, transactions would route directly to block leaders, a change intended to cut latency and reduce opportunities for front-running — a mechanism also flagged in coverage from WuBlockchain.
The roadmap follows recent upgrades already applied to BNB Smart Chain in the first half of 2026, which reportedly shortened block intervals from 750 milliseconds to 450 milliseconds and lifted benchmark throughput from about 2,800 transactions per second to 5,200. The next stage of work is meant to push throughput higher still and ease congestion between applications running on the chain.
Separately, BNB Chain said it is researching quantum-resistant security, aiming to protect against a future in which more capable quantum computers could break encryption used to secure data collected today. Developers are examining account abstraction as a way to let users adopt quantum-safe protections without needing to change wallet addresses, though this work remains at an early, research-only stage.
What is not yet settled includes how the new network's architecture will interoperate in practice with BNB Smart Chain, and whether the ambitious throughput and latency targets will hold once real testnet conditions are applied. The quantum-security effort in particular has no defined completion point, with developers describing it as an ongoing process rather than a fixed deliverable.