On Oct 8, BNB Chain posted a historic throughput burst: 5T gas consumed, ~31.3M transactions, and 24M swaps (77% of activity) — alongside >$6B in DEX turnover and the highest daily network fees across public chains. Upgrades and fee cuts set the stage; a memecoin-fueled user wave did the rest

October 8 was the kind of day that turns a blockchain into market infrastructure. Over a single 24-hour window, BNB Chain consumed roughly 5 trillion gas units, powered by a torrent of on-chain trading: about 24 million swaps that accounted for 77% of activity. Total transactions landed near 31.31 million, a jump of ~19% versus the prior day and an eye-popping ~719% versus a year ago.

Throughput by the numbers

Gas used: ~5T units in 24h (new daily record).
Swaps: ~24M, ~77% share of all activity that day.
Total transactions: ~31.31M on the day; independent dashboards show the same order of magnitude and the YoY surge.}

That mix — lots of small, swap-heavy interactions executed at high speed — is precisely what stress-tests a chain’s execution layer. On Oct 8, BNB Chain didn’t blink.

How the network got here: upgrades + fee cuts

BNB Chain’s throughput leap didn’t happen by accident. In 2025 it shipped back-to-back performance hardforks: Lorentz and then Maxwell, cutting block times first to ~1.5s and then to ~0.75–0.8s, and lifting the ceiling on per-second gas capacity. Those changes materially improved responsiveness and validator performance — the foundation you need before a traffic spike arrives.

Costs moved the same direction. A mid-2025 reduction brought the minimum gas price to 0.1 gwei, and a late-September proposal targets 0.05 gwei, pushing average user fees to fractions of a cent. This is the economic side of scaling: low, predictable costs that let DEXs and retail flows stack millions of interactions without breaking the bank.

DEX first, everything else follows

With plumbing in place, activity poured in — most of it from trading. On Oct 8, BNB Chain’s decentralized exchanges cleared about $6.05 billion in spot volume, led by PancakeSwap. That was one of 2025’s largest single-day DEX prints and a clear signal that order flow is concentrating where execution is cheapest and fastest.

Revenue data told the same story from another angle: the network booked around $5.57 million in daily fees — the highest among public blockchains that day, per DeFiLlama data shared via Binance’s market feed.

Price action and market cap context

The on-chain spike coincided with BNB notching a fresh all-time high above $1,280–$1,310, helping it retake the No. 3 spot by market value behind BTC and ETH. While prices don’t prove fundamentals, they do reflect the market’s read on sustained usage — and usage was screaming.

What made Oct 8 different

Swap-heavy demand: The share of swaps in total activity (≈77%) is unusual at this scale, pointing to a DEX-led day rather than NFT mints or bulk transfers. That’s a useful signal for builders thinking about liquidity tools, routing, and MEV protection at BNB scale.
Cost curves: With gas down to ~0.1 gwei and a live proposal for 0.05 gwei, BNB Chain’s per-transaction cost sits near the lowest among large L1s — a precondition for millions of end-user swaps in a day.
Elastic capacity: Post-Maxwell/Lorentz block times (≈0.75–0.8s) and higher gas-per-second throughput gave headroom for sudden bursts — the difference between a record day and a reorg-ridden one.

Year-over-year step-change

A year ago, BNB Chain’s daily transaction counts were a fraction of these levels; on Oct 8 they printed 31.31M, up about ~719% versus the same date last year (and corroborated by independent trackers that show a multi-hundred-percent YoY climb). That’s not a one-off spike; it’s a higher operating range.

Is BNB Chain still “Binance’s project”?

The newest metrics argue it’s now broader than a single exchange brand. BNB Chain’s app mix, independent DEX volume, fee leadership, and address growth are ecosystem-wide, with third-party analytics showing ~58M monthly active addresses in September and into October. That’s what an execution layer looks like when it stands on its own legs.

What to watch next

Fee floor to 0.05 gwei: If validators implement the latest cut, expect even denser DEX routing and wallet-level automation as sub-cent economics become the norm.
Block-time roadmap: Post-Maxwell discussions have hinted at further latency and throughput headroom; any stable reduction will compound DEX capacity.
Revenue leadership: Whether BNB Chain can sustain top-chain daily fees (without price spikes) will be a clean indicator of sticky, recurring usage.

Bottom line

In a single day, BNB Chain checked every box that matters for an execution-first L1: record gas consumption, a swap-heavy transaction mix, category-leading DEX volume, and peak network fees — all while keeping costs negligible for end users. Pair the Lorentz/Maxwell performance gains with aggressive fee cuts, and you get a chain that can credibly handle retail-scale trading today. The Oct 8 burst wasn’t just a headline; it was a stress test BNB Chain passed in public.