The True Value of Blockchain: Bitlayer Makes Cross-Border Transfers More Convenient. Lao Chen Shares Personal Experience on How Technology Changes Business

Last summer in a guesthouse in Dali, I met Old Chen, who was engaged in cross-border e-commerce. He was squatting in the yard smoking at midnight, with his phone screen lit up, displaying a transaction record from a public blockchain — a payment sent to Southeast Asia, stuck on the chain for three days with no movement; the customer had already sent an email to cancel the order. "It's not that I haven't thought about using traditional remittance," he extinguished his cigarette, "but with the fees and exchange rate losses, the profit is cut in half."

That night we talked a lot, from the 'decentralization' of blockchain to the 'bottlenecks' in practical applications. He said he had tried quite a few public chains, either the speed couldn't keep up or there were always issues during cross-chain transfers. "To put it bluntly, no matter how good the technology is, if it can't solve real problems, it's useless."

Coincidentally, a week later I saw Bitlayer in an industry report. Its main feature, 'Layer2 + cross-chain integration' mechanism, simply put, is that it can rely on the security of the underlying public chain, speed up through its own sharding technology, and seamlessly connect assets on different chains. What attracted me the most was its 'adaptive Gas fee model' — automatically adjusting transaction fees during peak periods, avoiding the 'sky-high congestion fees' that Old Chen encountered.

When I sent the report to Old Chen, he was worried about another order. With a trial-and-error mindset, he used Bitlayer to transfer a test payment, and from initiation to the other party's confirmation, it only took 47 seconds, with the fee converted to RMB being less than two yuan. "If this can be popularized, we in cross-border trade could at least earn five more points." His voice on the phone was filled with excitement. #Bitlayer

Later, Old Chen became a 'wild promoter' for Bitlayer, bringing together a dozen merchants in his circle to use it. Last month when I saw him, he said that cross-border transfers were basically arriving on the same day now, and the saved fees were enough to give the team two more bonuses. "Do you think this currency is valuable? I believe that technology that can solve real problems will eventually be recognized one day." @BitlayerLabs

In fact, the value of blockchain has always been hidden in these specific scenarios. Bitlayer has never shouted any slogans about 'disrupting the world', it just quietly speeds up the transfer process a little, reduces the fees a bit, allowing ordinary people like Old Chen to genuinely feel the convenience brought by technology. This kind of solidity may be more powerful than any gimmick.