The Prover Network Landscape: A Comparative Analysis of Succint and Boundless Networks
Abstract
- Network scale. Both networks have reached a genuinely scaled phase for proofs and requests. Boundless has created a high-frequency open marketplace that absorbs substantial compute; Succinct spans many major protocols with steadily rising proof demand. Net-net, supply and demand are expanding in tandem, with activity and throughput trending up.
- Economic models. Boundless uses a reverse Dutch auction: the price starts at a minimum (often 0 ETH), then rises linearly to a cap and stays there until the lock deadline. On beta mainnet today, provers frequently bid 0 on the prove fee and instead compete to lock orders — often using MEV-style tactics to win first inclusion.
Succinct runs a real-time auction denominated in $PROVE: provers bid a per-unit compute price; the lowest bid wins (ties are randomly selected), and each job includes a fixed base fee. Provers must stake $PROVE to participate; failure to deliver on time is penalized (slashing). - Miner appeal (current earnings). On Boundless, jobs typically pay near zero in direct fees; rewards primarily come from leaderboard points redeemable for $ZKC. Succinct pays out $PROVE immediately (base fee + metered compute), which is tradable — so near-term economics are clearer.
- Who’s a better fit right now? If you have GPU but limited staking capital, Boundless offers low entry barriers and an open network to bank future token rewards. If you can purchase and stake $PROVE, Succinct offers more immediate per-job rewards in $PROVE and can be more lucrative near-term.
1. Network Snapshot: Scale, Trends, and Centralization
At a glance, Boundless shows broader participation and openness, with many small and mid-sized nodes contributing — implying greater decentralization. Succinct currently has fewer provers; early compute may concentrate among a smaller set of high-reputation, higher-bid nodes.
From a growth-trend perspective, as more blockchains and applications integrate with these networks, proof demand should continue to grow rapidly, and both participation and throughput are likely to rise accordingly.
Boundless’s compute contribution appears long-tailed — work is spread across a wider set of miners, limiting any single node’s share. Succinct’s higher entry bar makes the network more concentrated in the early stage: only nodes with sufficient stake and performance consistently win jobs, favoring “the strong get stronger.” Over time, as more participants acquire and stake $PROVE, the number of active provers may rise.
2. Economic Models: Auction & Incentive Design
The two networks differ fundamentally in pricing and incentives.
Boundless: Reverse Dutch Auction
When a user submits a ZK proof request, Boundless prices the job via a reverse Dutch auction:
- The requester specifies a min/max price and timing parameters.
- The price starts very low (often 0) → rises linearly to an upper bound → if no one locks the job by the lock deadline, it expires.
Early on, with token incentives and abundant supply, competition pushed most jobs to clear at 0 fee — provers did unpaid work to farm token rewards. Boundless has earmarked 5,000,000 $ZKC (0.5% of supply) for test incentives; in Season 1 and Season 2, weekly pools are 0.1%. Each prover earns points based on total compute cycles, success rate, and speed, then shares the pool pro-rata after the event. This “work now, tokens later” model encouraged provers to aggressively take jobs and undercut prices, producing a near-free proof market.
Succinct: Staked Real-Time Auction
Succinct splits job cost into two parts:
- A fixed base fee; and
- A per-PGU (proof gas unit) bid set by real-time auction. The network assigns the job to the lowest qualified bidder (ties randomly broken).
Total fee = Base Fee + Bid Price per PGU×PGUs consumed
Provers must stake $PROVE to bid. Staking raises the bar and ensures skin in the game: if a winner misses the deadline, part of their stake is slashed. This “pay-for-work” design creates a closed-loop token economy: requesters buy compute in $PROVE, provers earn $PROVE by delivering, and stakers support security and share rewards.
Bottom line: Boundless maximizes openness and competitive pressure — in today’s oversupplied phase, fees compress toward zero and token incentives backfill. Succinct balances incentives and reliability via staking and immediate payment. Boundless is deferred-incentive; Succinct is immediate-incentive.
3. Revenue & Cost Analysis
3.1 Revenue
Boundless. Today, mining on Boundless yields little to no direct ETH revenue. Intense competition plus extra incentives push most auctions to 0 fee — i.e., miners earn almost nothing per job.
The main upside is leaderboard points redeemable for $ZKC later. A total of 5 million $ZKC (0.5%) is allocated for test incentives. Your share depends on your relative points — computed from cycles completed, success rate, and peak throughput. Strategy-wise, miners should take more jobs, do more work, and accumulate cycles — even if a given job pays zero — to maximize their fraction of the final pool. Note the uncertainty: $ZKC’s future value is unknown and distribution comes later, so current work is a strategic investment.
Succinct. Each completed proof immediately pays $PROVE, so there’s direct cash flow.
Revenue per job = Base Fee + Bid Price per PGU×PGUs
Two distinct bidding strategies tend to emerge:
- High-volume, low-margin. Bid the per-cycle price very low (near zero) to increase win rate and effectively farm base fees across many small jobs.
- Fewer, high-margin “big jobs.” Quote a higher unit price for large jobs; leverage strong hardware to earn sizable variable fees.
In practice, many provers currently undercut to secure jobs and at least capture the base fee plus small variable fees — behaving like “base-fee farmers.” For urgent or heavy proofs, requesters often pay higher rates to reduce latency, creating upside for high-performance miners. Overall, Succinct miner earnings hinge on $PROVE’s market price and bidding strategy; because $PROVE is liquid, Succinct offers clearer, near-term economics.
3.2 Participation Costs
Boundless. Entry is nearly permissionless: anyone with suitable hardware (primarily GPU) can join — no network-specific token staking required, and thus no stake lockup risk. However, because auction prices are near zero, miners must manage electricity and hardware costs carefully: at 0 fee, you’re effectively mining at a loss unless expected $ZKC value compensates later. The good news: with no eligibility barriers, even modest rigs can win small jobs (win rate depends on bidding and competition). In short, Boundless’s main barrier is hardware capex/Opex; economic and policy barriers are low. (Note: things may change at mainnet.)
Succinct. The bar is higher. You must stake $PROVE to register as an active prover — tying up capital and bearing token price risk. If slashed (e.g., late or failed delivery), you take an immediate loss. Competition is intense: performant nodes often bid very low, so weaker hardware or high latency may lead to few wins. The network is more concentrated early; established operators dominate. Succinct suits professional providers with strong engineering and capital, rather than casual miners.
4. Conclusion
Shared direction. Both Boundless and Succinct aim to turn “producing and verifying ZK proofs” from a heavy, in-house operation into on-demand compute — like power or bandwidth — matched by market mechanisms. Boundless maximizes open access; Succinct embeds staking + price discovery for reliable delivery. Different paths, same goal: let applications pull proof capacity on demand — as easily as calling an API.
Reliability vs. decentralization. Openness invites variance; constraints raise entry costs. Boundless lowers barriers to gain scale and long-tail participation, using market penalties/redistribution to curb bad behavior. Succinct front-loads professionalism and reliability via staking and slashing — more concentrated but controllable in the near term. These designs are not mutually exclusive: as demand grows and tooling matures, open networks will add quality signals and reputation, while staked networks can decentralize via pooling and delegation.
