In Shenzhen, an entrepreneur named Mr. Zhang has been deeply engaged in the Layer2 payment project "Quick Payment Chain" for two years. This project primarily serves the cross-border Web3 payment needs of small and medium-sized enterprises, attracting many clients with its advantages of "low cost + quick settlement." However, as the business has developed, Mr. Zhang has gradually felt immense pressure and challenges.

In order to ensure that payment data is compliant and efficient on the blockchain, Mr. Zhang's team decided to build a zero-knowledge proof (ZK) system independently. This decision brought a huge financial burden: the development cost of the outsourced team was as high as 120,000 yuan, and 20,000 yuan per month was needed for system maintenance. The cost of the servers alone accounted for 30% of the project's profits.

What’s even more frustrating is that the verification speed of the system is not ideal. Merchants need to wait 3 seconds to generate the ZK proof when making cross-border payments, and this delay has caused dissatisfaction among customers. One clothing merchant even bluntly stated, "It’s much slower than Alipay," and immediately turned to a competitor's product.

When the "Quick Payment Chain" team attempted to expand their business to the Polygon chain to tap into new customer groups, they encountered technical bottlenecks once again. Developers estimated that developing a tailored ZK verification module for the Polygon chain would require at least 50,000 yuan and a month of time. Limited by budget constraints, Mr. Zhang helplessly watched as 50 potential merchants slipped away.

However, a turning point occurred at a blockchain technology salon in March of this year. Mr. Zhang's colleague, Old Zhou, recommended the Boundless zero-knowledge proof infrastructure to him. At first, Mr. Zhang was skeptical about it because they had encountered many issues when using ZK tools before, either due to poor compatibility or high fees.

It was not until Mr. Zhang saw the Boundless console demonstrated on-site by Old Zhou that he began to change his mind. The console interface clearly shows that users can connect to zkVM with zero code, external proof nodes can automatically generate and verify proofs, and it supports interoperability across 6 chains, including Ethereum and Polygon. Even more surprisingly, the cost of a single proof has been significantly reduced from $0.8 to $0.1.

This groundbreaking solution brings new hope to the "Fast Payment Chain" project. It not only significantly enhances verification speed but also greatly reduces operational costs, while addressing the challenges of cross-chain operations. Mr. Zhang realizes that this could be the breakthrough they have been searching for, with the potential to help "Fast Payment Chain" regain a competitive edge in the fierce Web3 payment market.

As technology continues to evolve, innovative solutions like Boundless are injecting new vitality into the Web3 ecosystem. They not only help projects overcome technical barriers but also open up new possibilities for the development of the entire industry. For projects like "Fast Payment Chain", this is undoubtedly an exciting new starting point.