LayerZero Announces Zero Blockchain Backed by Wall Street Giants
LayerZero announced its own high-speed L1 blockchain on February 10, 2026, backed by Citadel and ARK Invest. The Zero blockchain features a heterogeneous architecture capable of powering global finance and the internet, with four 100x breakthroughs in compute, storage, networking, and zero-knowledge proofs unlocking 2 million transactions per second, $0.000001 transaction costs, and virtually unlimited blockspace.
Major Institutional Backing
Citadel Securities is collaborating with LayerZero to provide market structure expertise and has made a strategic investment in ZRO, the network's native token and governance asset. The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) is collaborating to help shape the future of digital market structure for the securities industry and will investigate ways to leverage Zero's technological advancements to enhance the scalability of the DTC Tokenization Service and Collateral App Chain.
ARK Invest is becoming a shareholder of LayerZero equity and ZRO, with founder and CEO Cathie Wood joining the advisory board to help accelerate adoption of Zero by the largest markets and companies in the world. Google Cloud is joining as a partner to explore how to enable AI agents to make micropayments and trade resources instantly without needing a bank account.
Cardano Integration Confirmed
On February 12, 2026, Charles Hoskinson announced that LayerZero will port to Cardano, unlocking cross-chain access. This will connect Cardano to over 160 other blockchains and $80+ billion in omnichain assets, addressing its historical isolation.
Token Price Action
LayerZero's ZRO token rallied 40% after unveiling Zero, its new Layer 1 blockchain. ZRO surged from $1.7 to $2.5 after more details emerged, including Cathie Wood stepping on board as an advisor. Compared to LayerZero's value of $2.50 from 24 hours ago, there has been a -13% decrease, while the current price is 33% up from $1.63 recorded one week ago.
Launch Timeline
Zero is set to launch in the fall of 2026 with three initial "zones" – permissionless environments fully owned and governed by the underlying network – to reinvent what's possible onchain: from a general purpose EVM environment compatible with any solidity contract, to privacy-focused payments infrastructure, to a canonical, best-in-class environment for trading across all markets and asset classes.