CZ reacts to BNB Chain’s new L1 plan with no separate token

BNB Chain already spans BNB Smart Chain, opBNB and Greenfield, all settling in BNB rather than minting separate tokens since BSC's 2020 launch. The new Layer 1 extends that model, targeting 200-millisecond blocks for trading and payments, a speed bracket associated with chains like Solana. A public testnet is due late 2026, with mainnet slated for early 2027, putting BNB Chain in direct competition with faster, newer networks.

Developers building low-latency trading or payment apps get a venue tied to BNB Chain's existing liquidity and infrastructure without having to launch, market or distribute a new token. BNB holders see another use case added to fees and staking rather than facing dilution from a fresh asset. Teams weighing where to build must now choose between this shared-token Layer 1 and standalone chains like ASTER, which already issues on its own network.

Zhao's 'Multiple chains, one coins' framing cuts against the usual pattern where new Layer 1s mint native tokens to fund incentives and decentralize governance. Concentrating value in BNB across chains he and YZi Labs are closely tied to, including ASTER, raises a fair question about how distributed control really is when one group shapes token economics across a growing set of networks under the same brand.

The public testnet expected in late 2026 will show whether 200-millisecond blocks hold up under real trading and payment load, and the early 2027 mainnet launch will test whether BNB's fee-and-staking model scales across another chain. Watch whether ASTER stays a separate trading-focused network or gets pulled toward this new Layer 1 as the testnet results come in.