- BNB Chain’s Pascal hardfork on March 20 enhances EVM compatibility, enabling gasless transactions and smarter wallet interactions for DeFi.
- BNB’s market activity shows a slight decline in trading volume but an increase in futures open interest, highlighting growing futures interest.
BNB Chain’s Pascal hardfork is scheduled to go live on March 20, 2025, with an update introducing additional features, improving the blockchain’s performance and functionality. Following a positive testnet release in February 2025, this upgrade will improve Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) compatibility and developer flexibility.
BNB Chain's Pascal Hardfork is coming to Mainnet on Mar 20!
This upgrade brings EIP-7702 smart contract wallets, better EVM compatibility, and improved developer flexibility.
Here’s what you need to know 🧵👇 pic.twitter.com/7nHLRL8U8e
— BNB Chain (@BNBCHAIN) March 7, 2025
These changes will also directly impact user experience in decentralized finance (DeFi) applications by enabling new capabilities such as gasless transactions and smarter wallet interactions.
At the root of the Pascal upgrade is the implementation of Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP)-7702, which enhances the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) compatibility. This proposal allows externally owned accounts (EOAs) to carry out smart contract codes, enabling wallets to perform functions traditionally only available to smart contracts.
Gasless transactions, batch approvals, and swaps are among the key features that will benefit developers and users. These changes will streamline decentralized application (dApp) interactions and improve the overall user experience, making it easier to onboard users to the BNB Chain ecosystem.
Developer Requirements and Compatibility
As the Pascal hardfork approaches, developers, validators, node operators, exchanges, and other participants must update their systems to ensure compatibility with the upcoming changes. Failure to perform the necessary updates could make network participants out of sync once the upgrade is implemented.
Additionally, developers must ensure their applications and smart contracts comply with Pascal’s new EVM features and wallet integrations. This will be required to maintain functionality across the network and support smooth user experiences after the mainnet upgrade.
Moreover, the update will allow decentralized applications to cover gas fees for users, which could be an attractive feature for developers looking to attract and retain users. This shift will simplify user onboarding by removing some of the barriers associated with transaction costs, which have traditionally been challenging in decentralized finance applications.
BNB Price and Market Activity
Ahead of the Pascal hardfork, Binance Coin (BNB) has experienced some market fluctuations. As of the time of writing, BNB was trading at $595.85, recording a decline of 0.52% over the last 24 hours. The coin’s market capitalization stands at $84.89 billion, showing a small decrease of 0.54%. Despite these minor fluctuations, the trading volume over the past 24 hours reached $1.69 billion, showing an increase of 2.12%.
In addition, BNB derivatives have shown varied responses as the market prepares for the Pascal hardfork. According to Coinglass data, BNB’s trading volume in derivatives has dropped by 7.33%, reaching $686.58 million. However, the open interest in BNB futures has increased by 0.87%, totaling $684.60 million. This shows that while overall trading volume in derivatives has decreased, interest in holding futures contracts has grown.
The options market, on the other hand, has seen a greater decline. The volume of BNB options has decreased by 21.95%, amounting to $591.93 million. Additionally, open interest in options has fallen by 67.52%, down to $2.71 million.
The long/short ratio for BNB/USDT is nearly balanced at 0.9474, indicating a relatively even distribution of long and short positions in the market. The total “rekt” (liquidation) amount in the past 24 hours reached $365.49K, with long positions accounting for a portion of the liquidations at $274.23K.