Blockchain company LayerZero Labs is planning to launch its own layer-1 blockchain named “Zero” with backing from ARK Invest and Citadel Securities, and targeting institutional financial markets.
Zero will launch in the fall of 2026, according to an announcement on Tuesday from LayerZero Labs, which also created and maintains the cross-chain messaging protocol LayerZero.
The firm said it will be scalable to two million transactions per second by leveraging zero-knowledge proofs and zero‑knowledge virtual machine Jolt to bypass “the fundamental replication requirement,” which constrains “blockchains to fewer than 10,000 transactions per second.”
LayerZero Labs said Zero will launch with three permissionless environments governed by the underlying network, known as “zones.” It will use the network’s native token and governance asset LayerZero (ZRO) to provide interoperability between zones and across more than 165 blockchains.
Bryan Pellegrino, the CEO of LayerZero Labs, said in a statement that Zero’s “architecture moves the industry’s roadmap forward by at least a decade,” adding: “We believe we can actually bring the entire global economy on-chain with this technology.”
Zero introduces four 100x breakthroughs across storage (QMDB), compute (FAFO), networking (SVID), and zk proving (Jolt Pro).
It lives up to everything we stand for:- Decentralized- Permissionless- Censorship-resistant pic.twitter.com/x5ve1PqAyc
— LayerZero (@LayerZero_Core) February 10, 2026
A growing number of financial institutions are moving into crypto as regulations and infrastructure improve, which some predict will bring a new wave of adoption to the space.
Investments from large crypto players
The project has received backing from asset manager ARK Invest, which is becoming a shareholder of LayerZero equity and ZRO, along with market maker Citadel Securities, which has also made a strategic investment in the token.
ARK Invest CEO Cathie Wood will also join Zero’s newly formed advisory board, which includes Michael Blaugrund, vice president of strategic initiatives at the New York Stock Exchange’s parent company, Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), and Caroline Butler, the former head of digital assets at financial services company BNY Mellon.
The investment arm of stablecoin issuer Tether also announced on Tuesday that it had made a strategic investment in LayerZero Labs.
Institutions circling Zero for possible adoption
The project has gained interest from several major institutions, according to LayerZero Labs, which plan to explore the technology for possible use.
Related: LayerZero wins Stargate acquisition in 4-way bidding war
Google Cloud is partnering with LayerZero Labs to explore how AI agents could make micropayments and trade without needing a bank account.
Meanwhile, ICE is looking at Zero for trading and clearing infrastructure to support 24/7 markets and the integration of tokenized collateral. The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation hopes to use Zero to enhance the scalability of its tokenization service and collateral app chain.
Decentralized trading platform the Global Token Exchange is also planning to build the treasury layer of its decentralized system, Turbo, using Zero, the exchange said in an X post on Tuesday.
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