The evolution of blockchain technology has long been characterized by a foundational trade-off: trust versus scalability. While traditional cloud computing achieves outstanding economies of scale by relying on implicit trust in the service provider, on-chain execution, designed to be trustless, imposes strict limits on the amount of computation that can be performed. This scarcity of on-chain compute resource has traditionally been managed by gas markets, effectively rationing access and "pricing-out" all but the most high-margin requests, rather than solving the underlying problem. The emergence of Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZKPs) offered a superior solution by altering the trust dynamic, enabling a node to cryptographically prove that a computation results in a given output, thus obviating the need for skeptical re-execution and paving the path toward scalable, trustless, and decentralized compute. Yet, even with game-changing innovations like RISC Zero’s zkVM, which made ZK fast and easy to adopt using standard languages like Rust, a critical challenge remained: end-to-end integration and access to a reliable, decentralized proving infrastructure.
Boundless: Monetizing Verifiable Compute as a Commodity
Boundless is the answer to this integration challenge, proposing a fully decentralized protocol that leverages the financialization of compute to create a permissionless marketplace for ZK-powered services. The foundational premise is twofold: first, that verifiable compute can be treated as an abundant commodity due to the low barrier to entry offered by off-the-shelf hardware and open-source software, and second, that a novel mechanism called Proof of Verifiable Work (PoVW) allows this commodity to be trustlessly metered and traded. By deploying core smart contracts across any compatible blockchain, Boundless not only inherits the security properties of the underlying chain but also enables infrastructure providers—known as provers—to seamlessly engage with all deployments simultaneously, ensuring ample proving liquidity across the ecosystem. The system scales linearly: doubling the hardware operated by provers directly doubles the network’s capacity.
The Market Mechanics: Reverse Dutch Auctions and Trustless Trading
The protocol's marketplace facilitates the exchange of verifiable compute through two primary avenues: the spot market and verifiable service agreements. In the spot market, Boundless employs an efficient and open mechanism to match provers with requestors (like Alice, who needs a ZKP): the reverse Dutch auction. This auction model is perfectly suited for low-latency, on-chain implementations as it concludes once the first bid is confirmed, guaranteeing the requestor the lowest possible price with minimal overhead.
A requestor publishes a request with a machine-readable description, a deadline, and a monotone, non-decreasing price function. Initially, the price is low, and as time passes, the price increases until a prover is willing to fulfill it. Provers can either immediately fulfill the request or lock the request by staking a bond, granting exclusive rights to proof generation before a deadline. Crucially, the outcome of ZK-powered verifiable compute falls within the realm of objective truth. Combined with the integrity of metrics reported by Proof of Verifiable Work (which reveals the amount of computational work expended), this objectivity enables the entire system to facilitate the trustless trading of compute power.
Economic Resilience: Decentralization and Fulfillment Guarantees
The Boundless design is inherently anti-monopolistic, relying on pure market forces to ensure reliable service at a low cost. Because the software is open source and works with commodity hardware (even a MacBook Pro or gaming PC), the barrier to entry for new provers is extremely low. This permissionless supply of compute acts as a constant corrective force: if a dominant prover were to raise prices or censor requests, competitors would easily enter the market, undercut the high prices, and restore balance. This ensures that requests are fulfilled at a fair price whenever it is profitable for at least one party to do so.
Furthermore, the protocol is designed with robust fulfillment guarantees. If a prover locks a request but fails to meet the deadline, they lose their staked bond. This lost stake can then be used to fund a "retry" phase, where the premium offered (from the forfeited bond) incentivizes other provers to race and fulfill the request immediately. This mechanism effectively turns prover failure into a compensatory reward, maintaining network reliability and securing the requestor's outcome.
The $ZKC Token and Proof of Verifiable Work
At the heart of the economy is the native token, $ZKC, which has a capped total supply and a variable minting rate controlled by governance. $ZKC serves multiple utility functions: it can be staked for requests and service agreements, and it generates non-transferable points which are then burned to extract the fees collected by the market (the take rate on fulfilled requests).
The distribution of newly minted $ZKC is governed by the Proof of Verifiable Work (PoVW) reward mechanism. PoVW programmatically tracks two key metrics for every reward epoch and prover: the cumulative fees collected (a measure of value provided) and the cumulative number of cycles proven (a measure of work performed). To ensure a healthy balance between useful work and value generation, provers are rewarded based on the smaller of their fee proportion or their cycle proportion. This unique design ensures that provers are not only paid by requestors but also receive native rewards for contributing useful, verifiable compute to the market.
@Boundless represents a critical evolutionary step: it is not merely a decentralized application, but an essential infrastructure layer that successfully commoditizes a core technological breakthrough—ZKPs—through robust financial engineering. By solving the end-to-end integration problem and creating a liquid, trustless market for verifiable compute, Boundless accelerates the journey towards ubiquitous ZK adoption for every blockchain and protocol.
