Binance Smart Chain activates Bruno hard fork and BNB fee burn

Binance Smart Chain reached block 13,082,000 on November 30, 2021, activating the network’s version 1.1.5 “Bruno” hard fork. The upgrade introduced BEP-95, a protocol rule that diverted an initial 10% of eligible gas fees to a burn address, and stabilized an optional differential-synchronization system intended to help full nodes catch up with the chain more quickly.

The activation block is visible in BscScan’s chain record with a timestamp of 17:26:29 UTC. That is materially later than the project’s pre-fork estimate of approximately 08:00 UTC. Block height—not the forecast clock time—was the controlling activation condition.

A fee burn tied to use

BEP-95 changed how part of the network’s transaction revenue was handled. Under the specification, BSC gas fees were collected each block and allocated through system contracts. After Bruno, the ValidatorSet contract applied a `burnRatio` to the relevant gas fee and transferred that portion to the designated burn address. The initial ratio was 10%.

The ratio was not presented as permanently fixed. BEP-95 assigned BSC validators the ability to change it through the network’s governance process. The specification described a proposal deposit of 2,000 BNB and a passage threshold equal to 50% of the voting power of bonded validators. Those parameters describe the protocol’s November 30 design; they should not be treated as a guarantee that governance settings would remain unchanged.

The economic significance was straightforward but easy to overstate. Bruno connected some BNB destruction directly to activity on Binance Smart Chain: more eligible gas fees meant more BNB routed to the burn address. That created a usage-linked supply effect distinct from Binance’s periodic token-burning program. It did not establish that BNB’s market price would rise, and the activation event alone provides no defensible estimate of its price impact.

The node-operations problem

Bruno also addressed infrastructure pressure. In its November 18 announcement, the project said BSC had exceeded 2 million daily active addresses and had processed a peak of 14 million transactions during a 24-hour period on November 17. Those figures were project-reported operational metrics, not independently audited measurements, but they explain why node synchronization had become part of the release narrative.

Version 1.1.5 promoted the differential-synchronization, or DiffSync, protocol as a stable feature. The release documentation said project tests showed an approximately 60% to 70% improvement in synchronization speed. That was a software-team test result rather than a neutral benchmark across different hardware, network connections and database states. Node operators still had to enable the feature with the documented command-line option.

Because Bruno changed consensus behavior, validators and full-node operators running incompatible software could no longer follow the upgraded chain after block 13,082,000. Exchanges including Gate temporarily suspended BSC deposits and withdrawals around the planned fork while leaving internal token trading available. The operational pause was therefore a custody and settlement precaution, not evidence that the underlying assets had stopped trading.

Why November 30 mattered

Bruno combined token economics and network maintenance in one consensus change. For BNB holders, it made part of the burn rate dependent on actual chain use. For validators, it reduced the share of eligible fees retained for distribution and placed the burn ratio within validator governance. For infrastructure operators, it imposed a software-compatibility deadline while offering a claimed improvement to synchronization performance.

The durable fact from November 30, 2021 is the protocol transition at block 13,082,000. Claims about faster nodes came from the project’s tests, while claims about future scarcity or market value remained prospective. The hard fork changed the rules; it did not settle how valuable those rules would become.