LayerZero Labs has introduced Zero, a new blockchain platform engineered to address long-standing scalability limitations within decentralized networks. This initiative unifies prominent entities across finance and technology, including Citadel Securities, The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), Google Cloud, and Intercontinental Exchange.
Bryan Pellegrino, CEO of LayerZero Labs, stated that Zero’s architecture advances the industry’s roadmap significantly, expressing a belief in its potential to integrate the global economy on-chain as part of a mission to build permissionless infrastructure.
To support Zero, LayerZero has established an Advisory Board comprising notable figures in finance: Cathie Wood, Founder, CEO, & CIO of ARK Invest; Michael Blaugrund, VP of Strategic Initiatives at Intercontinental Exchange; and Caroline Butler, former head of digital assets at BNY Mellon.
Zero is built upon four foundational breakthroughs in storage, compute, network, and zero knowledge, enabling scalability up to 2 million transactions per second (TPS) across an unlimited number of zones. These advancements aim to provide blockspace abundance, achieving performance up to approximately 100,000 times faster throughput than Ethereum and around 500 times more than Solana. Unlike traditional blockchains, which necessitate every node to replicate the same work, Zero implements a heterogeneous architecture. By utilizing zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs) and Jolt, Zero decouples transaction execution from verification, thereby removing the replication requirement that has historically confined blockchains to under 10,000 transactions per second.
Citadel Securities is collaborating with LayerZero to lend its market structure expertise and evaluate how Zero’s technology could be applied to high-performance and reliable trading, clearing, and settlement workflows. The firm has also made a strategic investment in ZRO, the network’s native token and governance asset.
DTCC will collaborate to shape the future of digital market infrastructure for the securities industry. The organization plans to investigate leveraging Zero’s technological advancements to enhance the scalability of its DTC Tokenization Service and Collateral App Chain. Frank La Salla, DTCC’s President and CEO, noted that while DTCC has been advancing digital asset adoption, blockchain’s full potential has been limited by speed and scale. He expressed anticipation for working with LayerZero and others to advance their digital strategy by tokenizing securities with security, scalability, legal soundness, and interoperability.
Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), which owns the New York Stock Exchange and operates global derivatives exchanges and clearing houses, is examining potential applications of Zero as it prepares its infrastructure for 24/7 markets and the integration of tokenized collateral. Michael Blaugrund, VP of Strategic Initiatives at ICE, stated that the exploration aims to deepen understanding of how on-chain advancements could unlock new use cases in trading, clearing, settlement, and capital formation.
ARK Invest is becoming a shareholder of LayerZero equity and ZRO. Cathie Wood, Founder, CEO, & CIO of ARK Invest, will join LayerZero’s advisory board, citing the historic opportunity at the intersection of finance and the internet and expressing excitement for the future driven by LayerZero’s work.
Google Cloud is partnering to explore how AI agents can facilitate instant micropayments and resource trading without requiring a bank account. Richard Widmann, Head of Web3 Strategy at Google Cloud, highlighted a convergence between cloud computing and blockchains, anticipating that as AI agents become economic actors, the programmability of cryptocurrencies will necessitate reliable infrastructure. He indicated that LayerZero’s approach to rethinking blockchain fundamentals, combined with Google Cloud’s infrastructure, could expand the internet’s definition to include value.
Zero is designed to be permissionless for validation, building, and transacting. Its launch is scheduled for Fall 2026, with three initial
