BNB Smart Chain will activate its Pasteur hard fork on mainnet at 02:30 UTC on Aug. 25, and node operators must install client v1.7.7 and remove the outdated EnableBAL setting before the upgrade. Announced on Aug. 14, Pasteur includes BEP-682, BEP-695 and BEP-675: one closes a duplicate-validator weakness in cross-chain transfer approvals, another removes residual authority from rotated validator keys, keeps pending penalties attached after key changes and blocks blacklisted addresses from participating in governance through signed messages, and the third changes block handling so validators can approve builder-executed blocks before deeper review. In internal QANet tests, validator check time fell to 15 milliseconds from 125 milliseconds and throughput rose to 2,324 transactions per second from 1,237 while the 450-millisecond block time stayed unchanged. BNB Chain said the performance figures came from controlled tests, and the new block-building method will not switch on automatically at activation because builders will get extra time to prepare.