BNB Chain Plans New Layer-1 for AI Agents and Quantum Future

AI agents may be ready to trade crypto—but BNB Chain says today’s blockchains aren’t ready for them.

On Wednesday, BNB Chain unveiled plans for a new layer-1 blockchain built to handle high-frequency trading, automated payments, and AI-driven transactions at speeds closer to traditional financial markets. The new network will run alongside the existing BNB Chain blockchain, not replace it, according to its developers.

Detailed in its H2 2026 technical roadmap, the new network is expected to launch on testnet by the end of 2026, with a mainnet release planned for early 2027.

“Six months ago, BNB Chain set three priorities for BSC: speed, throughput, and protocol stability,” the developers wrote. “This roadmap opens with the receipts and closes with what comes next—a second half focused on doubling performance again, and an architecture designed for the decade ahead.”

According to BNB Chain, the new network is being built to eventually handle more than 100,000 transactions per second by processing multiple transactions at once and improving how data is stored and verified. The developers said it is also aiming to confirm transactions in less than 50 milliseconds and finalize blocks in under one second.

A major component of the new layer-one is TxStream. This system removes the public mempool where pending blockchain transactions are typically visible before confirmation and sends transactions directly to block leaders to reduce latency and limit front-running opportunities.

According to BNB Chain, upgrades to BNB Smart Chain during the first half of 2026 reduced block intervals from 750 milliseconds to 450 milliseconds and increased benchmark throughput from roughly 2,800 transactions per second to 5,200. The developers said its next phase will focus on further increasing throughput, reducing congestion between applications.

Beyond speed improvements, BNB Chain said it is researching quantum-resistant security as developers prepare for future threats from quantum computers.

The developers said they are exploring ways to add quantum-safe protections through account abstraction, allowing users to upgrade security without changing wallet addresses. The work remains in the research phase.

BNB Chain said its quantum security research focuses on protecting against future threats where more advanced quantum computers could decrypt encrypted data collected today. The developers said it is testing hybrid protections and ways for users to adopt quantum-safe security without changing wallet addresses.

“There’s no finish line here. Quantum computing will keep evolving, and so will our testing and research,” they wrote. “The point is that when it matures, BNB Chain’s infrastructure is already prepared.”

BNB Chain did not immediately respond to a request for comment by Decrypt.

The news comes as crypto and technology companies are building infrastructure for AI agents that can move money and execute transactions without constant human approval.

In March, Stripe-backed Tempo launched its payments-focused layer-1 blockchain alongside the Machine Payments Protocol, an open standard designed for transactions between AI agents and online services.

That same month, MoonPay launched the Open Wallet Standard, a framework developed with contributors including PayPal, Ethereum Foundation, Solana Foundation, Ripple, and others to let AI agents manage funds and execute transactions across blockchains.

In May, Amazon Web Services partnered with Coinbase and Stripe to launch Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Payments, which lets AI agents use USDC stablecoins to pay for APIs, data feeds, and online services, and in June, Coinbase launched Coinbase for Agents, a tool that lets AI agents trade crypto, make payments, and manage portfolios within user-defined limits.