Last month, I helped my cousin organize the warehouse, and she found a thick stack of cross-border logistics orders. Pointing to one of them, she sighed: “Look at this order, home goods sent to Australia. The customer has received the goods, but our final payment hasn’t arrived yet. The bank says cross-border settlement has to go through a clearing system, and just queuing takes a week.”

This scene reminded me of a few years ago when I helped my cousin who was in foreign trade keep track of accounts. At that time, every time he received overseas payments, he was as anxious as waiting for a delivery — the bank would notify him that the “payment has been processed,” but the arrival time was always “3-10 business days,” and if it coincided with a holiday, it would be delayed. Once, for an urgent order, the customer confirmed receipt, but the payment got stuck for 9 days in the middle; my cousin almost borrowed online loans to manage his cash flow.

Last week, I saw my cousin post a message in the industry group, saying she finally found a “savior.” She tried Bitlayer with colleagues, and when she used it for the first time, she specifically timed it: from initiating the payment to seeing it in the account, it took exactly 1 minute and 20 seconds. “The transaction fee is even more outrageous,” she posted a screenshot in the group, “before, receiving $10,000, the bank fees and intermediary fees deducted nearly $300, but now using Bitlayer, it’s just over $20.”

I later understood that Bitlayer’s “speed” and “cost-saving” were not just empty claims. It relies on the security foundation of the underlying public chain and uses sharding technology to break down the settlement process, just like expanding a congested single-lane road into multiple lanes, doubling the data processing efficiency. More importantly, its cross-chain compatibility means that no matter which chain's assets the customer uses, it can connect seamlessly, eliminating the loss from intermediary exchanges. #Bitlayer

Yesterday, my cousin posted on her WeChat Moments, showing this month's settlement order: “In the past, 3 out of 10 payments would get stuck on the way, but now they all arrive in seconds; the saved transaction fees are enough to give the warehouse auntie an extra two months' salary.” In the comments section, several colleagues in foreign trade were asking how to use it.

In fact, those engaged in cross-border business know best that compared to the slogans of “reconstructing finance,” what they need more is the reliability of “shipping today and receiving tomorrow.” Bitlayer has never made grandiose claims; it simply changed the settlement time from “calculated by weeks” to “calculated by minutes,” and the transaction fees from “deducted by hundreds” to “saved by chunks.” This convenience hidden in the details is what ordinary people need the most in terms of technological warmth. @BitlayerLabs