The project has secured strategic investments from Citadel Securities and ARK Invest.
Crypto News
LayerZero Labs plans to launch Zero, a new layer-1 blockchain designed for institutional financial markets, in fall 2026. The project has secured strategic investments from Citadel Securities and ARK Invest.
Zero aims to process up to 2 million transactions per second by using zero-knowledge proofs and the Jolt virtual machine. LayerZero Labs stated this approach bypasses the replication requirement that limits most blockchains to under 10,000 transactions per second.
The blockchain will launch with three permissionless environments called zones, all governed by the underlying network. LayerZero, the native token of the LayerZero protocol, will enable interoperability between these zones and across more than 165 existing blockchains.
Bryan Pellegrino, CEO of LayerZero Labs, stated the architecture advances the industry roadmap by at least a decade. He expressed confidence that the technology can bring the entire global economy on-chain.
ARK Invest is becoming a shareholder in both LayerZero equity and LayerZero tokens. CEO Cathie Wood will join Zero's newly formed advisory board alongside executives from Intercontinental Exchange and former BNY Mellon leadership. Citadel Securities has also made a strategic investment in LayerZero.
Tether's investment arm announced Tuesday it made a strategic investment in LayerZero Labs. The project has attracted interest from several major institutions exploring the technology for potential adoption.
Google Cloud is partnering with LayerZero Labs to examine how AI agents could facilitate micropayments and trading without bank accounts. Intercontinental Exchange is evaluating Zero for trading and clearing infrastructure to support 24/7 markets and tokenized collateral integration.
The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation hopes to use Zero to enhance the scalability of its tokenization service and collateral app chain. Global Token Exchange plans to build the treasury layer of its decentralized Turbo system using Zero.
The growing institutional interest reflects broader trends as financial institutions expand into crypto amid improving regulations and infrastructure.
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