Summary
- Boundless now provides OP-stack rollups with access to fast finality.
- It introduced the first non-interactive dispute game enabled by ZK proofs
- Rollups can switch between ZK Fault Proofs and Validity Proofs using a single set of smart contracts.
- Built on the Boundless Network, rollups gain access to 400T cycles/day of proving capacity at a median cost of <$0.04 per billion cycles.
- Boundless can prove OP Mainnet for $29K/month (24.34T cycles/day), Unichain for $8.7K/month (7.26T cycles/day), and BOB for $835/month (700B cycles/day) — with clear improvements in the pipeline that will drastically reduce costs further.
- Rollups like BOB, SOON, and MegaETH are already using Boundless.
If you’re a rollup team, get in touch to see how Boundless could work for you.
___________________________________________________________________________________
Rollups have brought scalability to Ethereum and beyond. They’ve proven that offloading execution from Ethereum works, and how user experience can improve without throwing away decentralization. But as more chains launch and the value secured by rollups grows, one question keeps returning: what secures the rollups themselves?
For years, optimistic rollups have relied on the same assumption. State proposals are considered valid unless proven otherwise. It’s an elegant model, but it comes with trade-offs: the 7-day challenge window, complex dispute games that increase attack surface, and significant capital requirements. This model slows liquidity, increases counterparty risk, and forces users through less decentralized bridging alternatives to move funds faster.
As the ecosystem matures, it’s clear the next evolution isn’t to abandon optimistic rollups, it’s about upgrading them.
Boundless for Rollups
Boundless for Rollups gives OP chains a direct path to faster finality and Stage 2 readiness.
It’s a direct upgrade to the optimistic model, replacing interactive dispute games with ZK proofs, the first system of its kind deployed for OP chains.
Boundless supports both ZK Fault Proofs and Validity Proofs in a single, unified framework. Rollups can start in ZK fault proof mode for efficiency, enable full validity for the fastest finality, or move seamlessly between both as their needs evolve.
All of this is powered by Boundless, the world’s largest proof network, giving rollups access to vast amounts of proving capacity backed by the same decentralization and liveness guarantees of the chain of your choice.
Flexible Security Model
Boundless offers a configurable security spectrum that adapts to the needs of OP rollups:
- ZK Fault Proof Mode: A non-interactive ZK dispute mechanism, where disputes are resolved with a single ZK proof, eliminating bisection games completely. Reducing finality from 7-days to 24 hours.
- Validity Proof Mode: verifies every block before it finalizes, removing the need for disputes entirely and enabling finality in minutes.
Teams can start in hybrid mode for almost free, update to validity when ready, and even switch between the two as costs or needs change. This flexibility gives rollups full control over performance and cost while preparing them for the proof standards required for Stage 2.
The Boundless Network Advantage
The Boundless Network makes proof generation scalable and predictable.
High proving capacity: Boundless is the only network with a permissionless proving incentive mechanism, keeping capacity online at all times. The network provides 400T cycles per day of proving capacity (46x more than competing prover networks).
Low cost proving: The network pools idle and optimized hardware, lowering the marginal cost per proof. Developers get the performance of dedicated infrastructure without the overhead of managing it. The median cost per billion cycles on Boundless is just $0.04.
No new trust assumptions: Boundless’ smart-contract centric design inherits the security guarantees of whichever blockchain developers use as their settlement layer (e.g., Ethereum, Base).
Resilient by design: Boundless operates across a distributed set of independent provers and validators from multiple chains, eliminating central dependencies and maintaining uptime even under congestion or attack. The core team runs no infrastructure required for the market to function.
Together, these qualities make Boundless the only network capable of meeting the proving demands of the most demanding rollups, offering lower costs, higher throughput, and reliability that self-hosted or more centralized networks’ proving setups simply can’t match.
Making ZK Rollups Practical
ZK proofs have historically been expensive. Boundless changes that.
By connecting rollups to the Boundless Network, proving costs drop dramatically, finally making large-scale validity proving practical.
At current throughput, Boundless can prove OP Mainnet for ≈$29K/month (24.34T cycles/day), Unichain for ≈$8.7K/month (7.26T cycles/day), and BOB for ≈$835/month (700B cycles/day), demonstrating efficient scaling across rollups of different sizes.
Median cost per billion cycles on Boundless: $0.04
Disclaimer: Based on network pricing as of January 2025. Subject to change.
Proven in production
Boundless for Rollups isn’t a concept. It’s already securing real networks today.
- BOB is building a hybrid rollup that brings programmability to Bitcoin, allowing developers to leverage Bitcoin’s security while enjoying the flexibility of Ethereum smart contracts.
- MegaETH is a new high-performance rollup designed for real-time applications, pushing the limits of throughput and latency.
- SOON is a SVM-based rollup stack designed to bring Solana’s performance to every ecosystem.
Both rely on Boundless to replace interactive dispute games with ZK, dramatically reducing withdrawal times.
Future-Proof Your Rollup Today
From OP Stack to custom architectures, Boundless provides the foundation for proof-based infrastructure that scales.
Boundless For Rollups gives every team the power to secure their chains with ZK proofs. It’s how rollups evolve from optimistic to verifiable, achieving faster finality, stronger security, and seamless interoperability.
If you’re a rollup team, get in touch to see how Boundless could work for you.
If you are a protocol looking to immediately start requesting proofs, learn more by visiting the Boundless documentation.