Wall Street’s push into blockchain infrastructure took a decisive step forward this week as Citadel Securities made a strategic investment in LayerZero’s ZRO token alongside the launch of Zero, a new high-performance blockchain designed to support global financial markets at scale.
The announcement, made Tuesday by LayerZero Labs, underscores a shift in how major financial institutions are approaching crypto. Rather than viewing blockchains as speculative rails, firms are increasingly evaluating them as potential upgrades to legacy trading, clearing, and settlement systems — provided performance, reliability, and cost hurdles can be overcome.
From Interoperability to Market Infrastructure
LayerZero is best known for operating one of crypto’s largest interoperability networks, linking more than 165 blockchains. With Zero, the firm is moving beyond messaging and into core market infrastructure. Citadel Securities’ investment in ZRO, the network’s native token and governance asset, signals confidence that LayerZero’s architecture could support high-throughput institutional workflows.
Citadel said it is collaborating with LayerZero to explore applications across market structure and post-trade processes, including clearing and settlement — areas where latency and scalability constraints have historically limited blockchain adoption.
ARK Invest is also backing the project, investing in both LayerZero equity and ZRO. ARK CEO Cathie Wood will join a newly formed advisory board alongside ICE executive Michael Blaugrund and former BNY Mellon digital assets head Caroline Butler. The size of the investments was not disclosed.
Earlier the same day, Tether Investments said it had also made a strategic investment in LayerZero Labs, adding another heavyweight name to the project’s backers.
Inside Zero’s Architecture
Zero is built around what LayerZero calls a first-of-its-kind heterogeneous blockchain design. Using zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs), the system separates transaction execution from verification, allowing different zones to be optimized for specific tasks rather than forcing every node to perform identical work.
LayerZero claims the architecture can scale to roughly 2 million transactions per second across multiple zones, with transaction costs approaching a millionth of a dollar and effectively unlimited blockspace. ZKPs enable transactions to be verified without revealing underlying data, a feature seen as critical for institutional privacy and compliance.
The blockchain will launch with three initial zones: a general-purpose Ethereum Virtual Machine environment, a privacy-focused payments system, and a purpose-built trading venue. ZRO will anchor governance and security, while LayerZero’s interoperability stack connects Zero to existing blockchains.
Institutions Test Tokenized Markets
The project is debuting in collaboration with several major infrastructure providers. Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation said it will explore using Zero to enhance the scalability of tokenization and collateral initiatives. Intercontinental Exchange, parent of the New York Stock Exchange, is examining applications tied to 24/7 trading and tokenized collateral.
Google Cloud is partnering with LayerZero to explore blockchain-based micropayments and resource trading for AI agents, highlighting growing interest in programmable money for machine-driven economies.
LayerZero CEO Bryan Pellegrino described Zero as a step-change for the industry. “Zero’s architecture moves the industry’s roadmap forward by at least a decade,” he said, adding that the technology could eventually bring global economic activity onchain.
A Maturing Thesis
The launch reflects a broader inflection point. After years of pilots, financial institutions are moving more decisively as scalability improves and regulatory clarity advances. If Zero delivers on its performance claims, it could strengthen the case that blockchains are ready not just for crypto-native activity, but for the plumbing of global markets.
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