When the $37 billion staking assets managed by Lido face potential risks in the validator exit process, and when liquid staking protocols cannot allow users to redeem in a timely manner due to delays in proof generation, zero-knowledge proof (ZK) technology is no longer merely a performance optimization tool, but a 'core shield' protecting the safety of assets worth hundreds of billions. Boundless is upgrading passive risk prevention into proactive security assurance through a verifiable computing solution tailored for liquid staking scenarios, redefining the asset safety standards of the industry.
The security pain points of liquid staking ecology are hidden in the information gap of 'transparency and trustworthiness'. Taking Ethereum's liquid staking as an example, validators need to undergo multiple steps for exiting, including submitting exit requests, waiting in queues, and completing liquidations, involving complex calculations such as balance snapshots, signature verifications, and state synchronizations. If these processes only rely on on-chain public data, users find it difficult to verify whether the protocol actually executes the exit operations, while the protocol parties need to bear millions of dollars in development costs and ongoing maintenance expenses for building their own proof systems. This predicament of 'user verification difficulty and high project costs' leads to the security trust of liquid staking always being established on the indirect guarantee of 'code audits + community supervision', lacking the rigid support of underlying cryptographic proofs.
The key to Boundless's breakthrough is to reconstruct the security logic of liquid staking with 'off-chain efficient computing + on-chain trusted verification.' Its customized solutions for protocols like Lido transfer the core computational tasks during the validator exit process off-chain: through zkVM technology, it performs full-process calculations on the validator's staking position, exit queue sorting, and balance liquidation results, generating a zero-knowledge proof that includes a complete operational trajectory, which is then synchronized and submitted to the on-chain smart contract with the final result. Users and protocol parties do not need to replicate complex calculations; they only need to verify the validity of the proof to confirm the compliance of the exit process and the accuracy of the results, achieving 'invisible computation process, trustworthy and verifiable results.'
In balancing cost and efficiency, Boundless shows disruptive advantages. The on-chain verification scheme previously used by Lido required tens of billions of Gas to check 400,000 stakers' balances; the cost reached tens of thousands of dollars. After integrating Boundless, the same scale of verification is compressed to only 35,000 EVM Gas through proof aggregation technology, reducing the cost to under $50, a decrease of over 99.9%. The efficiency improvement is also significant: the proof generation time for validators exiting is reduced from hours to 15 minutes, and the waiting period for users to redeem assets is indirectly shortened by 30% due to process transparency. This 'low-cost, high-trust' characteristic allows liquid staking protocols to add 'cryptographic security locks' to assets worth hundreds of billions at an affordable cost.
The construction of a decentralized proof network provides an infrastructure for secure services that never goes down. The security guarantee of liquid staking relies on the continuous stability of the proof service; any single point of failure can trigger market panic. Boundless attracts over 1,200 independent proof nodes worldwide to participate in competition through a permissionless access mechanism, using a 'reverse Dutch auction + staking penalty' mechanism: provers bid to offer optimal service prices, and nodes that fail to submit qualified proofs on time will have part of their ZKC staking tokens deducted, with 50% destroyed and 50% rewarded to replacement nodes. This design ensures that even if some nodes fail, there is still enough computing power to support proof generation, as the Lido technology leader stated: 'The decentralized network of Boundless gives our security services the same level of fault tolerance as the Ethereum main chain.'
The ecological synergy effect is accelerating the penetration of this security capability. In addition to Lido, Boundless has cooperated with over 30 protocols including EigenLayer and BOB, covering multiple high-value scenarios such as re-staking and Bitcoin Rollup. In the integration with EigenLayer, its proof service not only optimizes large-scale penalty mechanisms but also provides security for the cross-ecosystem circulation of liquid staking assets through cross-chain verification capabilities; while in the BOB Bitcoin Rollup project, Boundless's ZK proof allows Bitcoin staking assets to securely connect to the Ethereum DeFi ecosystem, achieving the fusion of 'Bitcoin security + Ethereum liquidity.'
Starting from guarding $37 billion in assets, Boundless is building a universal security standard for liquid staking. It fills the gap of 'computational trustworthiness' with zero-knowledge proofs, guarantees service stability with a decentralized network, and breaks the contradiction between security and cost with a low-cost advantage. As liquid staking becomes the core pillar of the crypto economy, the security foundation provided by Boundless will become an indispensable infrastructure in the industry, allowing every staked asset to achieve dual protection of security and liquidity under the guardianship of cryptography.
