Boundless (ZKC) Price Prediction

Deep Dive

1. Exchange Listings & Warnings (Mixed Impact)

Overview: South Korea’s Upbit accounted for ~40% of ZKC’s September 2025 volume. DAXA’s October 2 investment warning (citing tokenomics discrepancies) crashed ZKC to $0.13. The Foundation’s token reallocation (community share +357%, lockups extended) led to warning removal on October 17, sparking a 66% rally to $0.30.

What this means: Centralized exchange actions remain critical – ZKC’s 1,300% volume spike post-warning removal shows retail sensitivity to regulatory narratives. However, reliance on a single exchange (Upbit) concentrates risk.

2. Inflation vs Staking Demand (Bearish Impact)

Overview: ZKC’s supply grows 7% annually (Year 1), tapering to 3% by Year 8. Only 75% of new tokens go to active provers; 25% reward passive stakers. Current circulating supply is 200.9M (20.1% of total), with 700K ZKC staked as of September 2025.

What this means: Unless network usage justifies inflation, sell pressure from staker rewards could persist. For price stability, annual ZKC burn/protocol revenue must offset at least 3% supply growth – no burn mechanism exists yet (Boundless Docs).

3. ZK Compute Adoption (Bullish Impact)

Overview: Boundless’ mainnet processes 1.25T+ compute cycles, serving 30+ chains including Ethereum and Base. November’s “Verifying Intelligence” event with Google Cloud targets AI/zkML use cases – a sector projected to grow 89% YoY in 2026 per Messari).

What this means: Every 10% increase in proof requests could require 150K-200K additional staked ZKC as prover collateral, creating buy pressure. However, competitors like RISC Zero and =nil; Foundation are pursuing similar enterprise deals.

Conclusion

ZKC’s medium-term trajectory hinges on balancing inflationary tokenomics with real-world adoption – a 3% annual inflation floor from Year 8 requires sustained demand. Watch the staking ratio (currently 0.35% of supply) and DAU metrics from Steel ZK coprocessor integrations. Can Boundless convert its VC backing (Bain, Galaxy) into enterprise contracts faster than inflation erodes holder value?