LayerZero Labs has unveiled plans to launch a new layer-1 blockchain called Zero in the fall of 2026, targeting institutional financial markets with backing from ARK Invest and Citadel Securities.
The company said Zero will scale to as many as two million transactions per second by using zero-knowledge proofs and the Jolt zero-knowledge virtual machine to bypass traditional replication constraints that limit most blockchains to fewer than 10,000 transactions per second.
Zero will debut with three permissionless environments known as zones and use the LayerZero ZRO token as its native governance and interoperability asset across more than 165 connected blockchains.
“Zero’s architecture moves the industry’s roadmap forward by at least a decade,”
Said LayerZero Labs Chief Executive Officer, Bryan Pellegrino, adding that:
“The firm believes it can bring the entire global economy on-chain with this technology.”
ARK Invest will become a shareholder in LayerZero equity and ZRO tokens, while Citadel Securities has also taken a strategic position, with ARK Chief Executive Cathie Wood joining a new advisory board alongside senior figures from Intercontinental Exchange and BNY Mellon.
Google Cloud is partnering with LayerZero Labs to explore artificial intelligence-driven micropayments and trading use cases, while Intercontinental Exchange and the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation are assessing Zero for potential trading, clearing and tokenised collateral applications.
The project has also attracted interest from decentralised trading platform Global Token Exchange, which plans to build the treasury layer of its system on Zero as institutional adoption of blockchain infrastructure accelerates.
At the time of reporting, LayerZero price was $2.38.