BNB

On January 11, BNB Foundation invested $200K across four Chinese-themed memecoins, allocating $50K to each. According to CoinMarketCap, $币安人生 rose 26.56% in 24 hours after the announcement. The Fermi Hard Fork is scheduled for January 14, and per X, it will reduce BNB Smart Chain block times from 0.75 to 0.45 seconds.

On 8 January 2026, Grayscale registered Delaware statutory trusts linked to prospective BNB and Hyperliquid HYPE exchange-traded fund products. These entities form an initial legal step before any formal ETF registration with the U.S. SEC, while BNB traded near $892 and HYPE around $26 on that date.

According to CryptoPotato, Bitcoin steadied around $90,500 on Friday with minimal movement over the past 12 hours after expectations for heightened volatility did not materialize. Altcoins were mixed: POL rose 17% toward $0.17, while ZEC fell 12% to $380; ETH hovered below $3,100 and XRP near $2.10. The total crypto market cap added roughly $20 billion to reach about $3.180 trillion.

In 2025, BNB Chain quietly became the most actively used major EVM network, overtaking rival chains on key on-chain metrics as the market moved toward 2026. While Ethereum continued to dominate in fees and settlement value, BNB Chain led in active addresses and transactions, reflecting more routine, retail-driven usage rather than short-lived hype cycles.

On January 8, 2026, Changpeng Zhao stated that his upcoming memoir's Chinese edition may be titled "币安人生" but stressed it has no link to the Binance Life meme coin. He added that he does not hold the Binance Life token and has no plans to buy it, and that the English version will use a different title. The Binance Life token, launched in October 2025 on BNB Smart Chain, briefly reached a market cap above $500 million before crashing after clarifications that his posts were not endorsements.

On January 14, BNB Smart Chain is set to activate the Fermi hard fork, cutting block times to 0.45 seconds after the broader BNB Chain completed its Fourier upgrade on January 7. The network is scaling in response to rising onchain demand, with Op BNB also halving its block time, while the BNB token trades near $884 following a 3.5% daily decline and open interest of about $820 million.

BNB Smart Chain is scheduled to implement the Fermi hard fork on January 14, 2026, targeting shorter block times and higher throughput. The upgrade follows the Fourier hard fork on Op BNB Chain on January 7, which reduced its block interval from 500 to 250 milliseconds. Despite these network improvements, BNB has dropped below $900 amid a broader market decline, with price volatility driven by long liquidations.

BNB Chain's Layer 2 opBNB executed the Fourier mainnet hard fork at 03:00 UTC on January 7, reducing block intervals from 500 ms to 250 ms. According to BNB Chain developers, the upgrade targets faster confirmations and lower latency for dApps, with node operators moving to op-node v0.5.5 and op-geth v0.5.9.

On 7 January 2026, the total cryptocurrency market capitalization retreated to roughly $3.12 trillion, marking a daily loss of more than 3% amid intensified short-term selling. Bitcoin, Ethereum, BNB, Solana and XRP all declined over the past 24 hours, yet several still show solid gains on a seven-day basis, while sentiment gauges remain broadly neutral.

The opBNB network has finalized its Fourier mainnet hardfork on Wednesday around 03:00 UTC, after starting testing on its testnet earlier in the week and cutting block time from 500ms to 250ms. The upgrade introduces multiple protocol and node-level changes aimed at improving stability, finality, and compatibility, while BNB Chain reports a 40.5% annual TVL increase and BNB trades above $920 ahead of the January 14 Fermi hardfork. These developments come as BNB remains about 33% below its all-time high of $1,370 set last October.