Binance Chain Testnet to Release for Public Testing on Feb 20: CZ

By Swati Kishore

Changpeng Zhao, the CEO of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance has revealed that the Binance Chain network will be launched for public testing on February 20, 2019.

The Chief Executive Officer, who is also popularly known as CZ in the crypto community, made a slew of announcements regarding the updates surrounding the Binance exchange and its various projects on an Ask-Me-Anything session the Livestream app.

During the live session, CZ announced that the Binance Chain network will be released in a few weeks time. Zhao also confirmed that the testnet will be available to the public on February 20, 2019, in a tweet. Zhao tweeted:

“Finally got a date. Targeting to release Binance Chain testnet (@binance_dex) for public testing on Feb 20th. This is a testnet, your feedback would be most valuable.”

During the Livestream session, Zhao also spoke about the number of validators on the Binance Chain network. He said,

I think for the testnet right now we elected to run eleven test nodes. I think any numbers is fine. The number of validators in our network will be small mainly for performance reasons. So it will not be as big as the Bitcoin network with thousands of nodes. It is going to be more like NEO…or even Ripple…smaller number of nodes and each node will be rather large.”

Additionally, CZ explained to the audience that the Binance Chain will not have smart contract functionality. Zhao said:

“In the Binance Chain, there is no smart contracts. We just have an interface for you to issue a token then you can trade it. Binance Chain is a very simple chain in terms of application but it can handle very large loads. It is our opinion that the load is more important than features…”

It is interesting to note that despite the ongoing slump in the crypto market, the exchange’s native currency, the Binance Coin, continues to trump the trend.

BNB recently achieved the distinction of reaching an all-time high when paired with Bitcoin. As compared to its last recorded high of 0.002655 BTC in June 2018, BNB’s most recent all-time high was at 0.0026991 BTC.