LayerZero Labs Announces 'Zero' Blockchain With Support From ARK and Citadel
LayerZero Labs plans to roll out Zero in autumn 2026, with the blockchain projected to handle as many as two million transactions per second through the use of zero-knowledge proofs and Jolt technology.
LayerZero Labs, a blockchain technology company, has revealed plans to introduce its proprietary layer-1 blockchain called "Zero," which has garnered financial support from ARK Invest and Citadel Securities, with a focus on serving institutional financial markets.
According to a Tuesday announcement from LayerZero Labs, Zero is set to go live in autumn 2026. The company is also responsible for developing and operating LayerZero, a cross-chain messaging protocol.
The company stated that the blockchain will have the capacity to scale to two million transactions per second through the utilization of zero-knowledge proofs and the zero-knowledge virtual machine Jolt, which enables it to circumvent "the fundamental replication requirement" that limits "blockchains to fewer than 10,000 transactions per second."
According to LayerZero Labs, Zero will debut with three permissionless environments that are governed by the underlying network, referred to as "zones." The blockchain will utilize LayerZero (ZRO), the network's native token and governance asset, to enable interoperability between zones and across over 165 blockchains.
In a statement, Bryan Pellegrino, CEO of LayerZero Labs, described Zero's "architecture" as advancing "the industry's roadmap forward by at least a decade," and stated: "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
— LayerZero (@LayerZero_Core) February 10, 2026
An increasing number of traditional financial institutions are entering the cryptocurrency sector as regulatory frameworks and infrastructure continue to mature, which industry observers believe could trigger a fresh wave of mainstream adoption.
Investments from large crypto players
ARK Invest, an asset management firm, has provided backing for the project by becoming a shareholder in both LayerZero equity and ZRO tokens, alongside Citadel Securities, a market making firm that has similarly made a strategic investment in the token.
Cathie Wood, CEO of ARK Invest, will join Zero's recently established advisory board, which also features Michael Blaugrund, vice president of strategic initiatives at Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the parent organization of the New York Stock Exchange, as well as Caroline Butler, who previously served as head of digital assets at BNY Mellon, a financial services firm.
Additionally, Tether's investment division announced on Tuesday that it had completed a strategic investment in LayerZero Labs, the stablecoin issuer revealed.
Institutions circling Zero for possible adoption
Several prominent institutions have expressed interest in the project, LayerZero Labs disclosed, with plans to investigate the technology for potential implementation.
Google Cloud has formed a partnership with LayerZero Labs to investigate how artificial intelligence agents could conduct micropayments and execute trades without requiring a traditional bank account.
At the same time, ICE is evaluating Zero for potential use in trading and clearing infrastructure to facilitate around-the-clock markets and the incorporation of tokenized collateral. The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation is interested in utilizing Zero to improve the scalability of its tokenization service and collateral application chain.
The Global Token Exchange, a decentralized trading platform, has also announced plans to construct the treasury layer of Turbo, its decentralized system, utilizing Zero, as stated in an X post published by the exchange on Tuesday.