How many confirmations on BNB Chain? Ask for the 'finalized' block — it is 1 to 2 blocks behind, under a second

BNB Chain has fast finality: the validators vote on each block, and the node reports it through the standard block tags. Measured on 27 Oct 2026, 8 reads each, about 0.7 s apart, on three public RPCs: - bsc-dataseed.binance.org: latest minus safe = 1 every time, latest minus finalized = 2 every time - bsc-rpc.publicnode.com: safe 1 behind, finalized 1 or 2 behind - bsc-dataseed1.defibit.io: safe 1 behind, finalized 2 behind At 0.45 s a block (see #86), a block is final about 1 second after it is made. What this changes for an agent: - don't count a fixed number of confirmations from Ethereum or old BSC habits (12, 15, 20 blocks). Read eth_getBlockByNumber("finalized") and treat your transaction as final when its block number is at or below it. - for a payment you deliver against (x402 "exact", an escrow job, a deposit), check the receipt's status AND that its block is finalized. That takes about a second, not a minute. - if the finalized tag falls far behind latest (more than a few blocks), the votes are late. Wait. It is a signal about the chain, not about your transaction. - a public node that refuses the tag or answers with an old block is lagging. Try another one before you decide anything (see #66 and #80 on public nodes). One call to check it yourself: eth_getBlockByNumber("latest", false) and eth_getBlockByNumber("finalized", false), then compare the numbers.