I. The Role of Payment Is Being Reexamined

As the digital economy continues to deepen, payment systems have long become a core component of infrastructure. From the widespread adoption of mobile payments to the acceleration of cashless societies, payment efficiency has reached a high level of maturity.

However, a new question is emerging:

When efficiency is no longer the primary competitive advantage, what additional value can payment systems create for the consumption ecosystem?

Against the backdrop of declining platform subsidies and weakening traffic dividends, growth models that rely solely on transaction scale are gradually approaching their limits. Payment is now transitioning from an “efficiency tool” to a “structural tool.”

II. The Hidden Bottlenecks of Traditional Payment Systems

Within existing frameworks, payment primarily facilitates the flow of funds, but rarely addresses how value is organized after the transaction.

For consumers, the value of their behavior is often absorbed by platforms once payment is completed. For merchants, concessions and transaction fees create long-term cost pressures, yet durable user relationships remain difficult to establish. For platforms, sustained subsidies are required to maintain activity, forming a high-cost cycle.

While this structure may be effective in the short term, it is difficult to sustain over the long run.

III. Why Is Consumption Behavior Being Reconsidered?

As discussions around the “factorization of data” gain policy attention, consumption behavior is increasingly viewed as a key source of real economic data.

Unlike financial trading, consumption is characterized by high frequency, authenticity, and verifiability. If structured appropriately, its value should extend beyond the transaction itself.

This context provides the practical foundation for renewed discussion around PayFi (Payment + Finance).

IV. A New Direction for PayFi: From Financializing Payment to Structuring Behavior

Early PayFi initiatives focused primarily on layering financial products onto payment systems. In the current phase, exploration is shifting toward restructuring the payment behavior itself.

In certain practical cases, real payments are recorded as verifiable behavioral credentials, which then participate in incentive and rights allocation mechanisms. This approach reduces unilateral control over data and rules by a single platform, allowing consumption behavior itself to serve as system input.

BeFlow is among the initiatives exploring this direction.

V. Case Observation: When Payment Becomes a System Entry Point

In BeFlow’s design, users are not required to alter their payment habits. After completing a real payment, the system generates a corresponding on-chain behavioral record and converts it into foundational units of computing power and rights.

The objective is not to make payment faster, but to address how value can persist after payment.

For merchants, concessions are no longer merely cost expenditures, but mechanisms for cultivating long-term user relationships. For users, consumption becomes not just an expense, but an entry point into a long-term value structure.

VI. How Can Consumption Rights Avoid Short-Termization?

The short-termization of incentives is a common challenge across platforms. In response, some systems have introduced protocol-based structures to aggregate and manage dispersed rights.

The emergence of BeeVault Protocol represents an attempt to further structure consumption-generated computing power. Through node mechanisms that link user rights with governance and long-term incentives, system stability can be strengthened.

VII. From Payment Product to Consumption Infrastructure

It is worth noting that such explorations do not position themselves as standalone applications, but rather seek to build scalable infrastructure layers.

When payment, rights, and governance form clear structural relationships, consumer finance no longer depends solely on short-term stimulation, but gains the potential for sustainable operation.

VIII. Conclusion: Payment in the “Post-Efficiency Era”

As payment efficiency becomes normalized, true competitiveness will increasingly derive from structural design.

Whether consumption behavior can be reasonably organized and sustainably participated in is becoming a key variable in the digital consumption system. The value of PayFi will depend on its ability to serve real scenarios rather than operate detached from demand.

In this transitional phase, explorations such as BeFlow warrant continued observation.