LayerZero Labs unveiled Zero, its own Layer 1 for institutional finance, on February 10, 2026. Citadel Securities made a strategic investment in $ZRO, and @LayerZero_Core says Zero can handle up to 2 million TPS per Zone. Why LayerZero built Zero:

LayerZero research tackles a big quantum problem for blockchains Blockchains verify thousands of validator signatures by bundling them into a single proof, but today’s method could be broken by future quantum computers. Quantum-safe signatures exist, but bundling them quickly has been hard. Aerie, new research from @LayerZero_Core with @a16zcrypto, Carnegie Mellon, and Imperial College London, bundled about 32,000 quantum-safe signatures in 0.65 seconds on a MacBook Pro. So far it has only been tested in benchmarks, not used on any live blockchain.

LayerZero (@LayerZero_Core) is Building Zero For Institutional Finance Zero uses zero knowledge proofs to separate transaction execution from verification. Citadel Securities, DTCC, ICE, Google Cloud, ARK Invest, and Tether back the project. Read the full breakdown below:

LayerZero underperforms all other major crypto assets. According to CMC data, @LayerZero_Core's $ZRO token is down nearly -13% in the past week. This makes it the worst performing asset among the top-100 tokens on CMC, followed by @Stable and @Aptos. All three of these assets however are up over the past 24 hours.

LayerZero just launched its own Exchange model @LayerZero_Core deploys ATLAS (Aggregated Trading Liquidity and Settlement), an “unhosted” exchange model that unifies matching, clearing, and risk management into one cohesive system. Built on Zero Chain technology, LayerZero’s ATLAS protocol is designed from the start to handle 200,000 transactions per second with sub-millisecond latency. It targets the $4.7 quadrillion securities settlements market currently served by legacy titans such as DTCC. ATLAS is available as both the Open and Institutional ATLAS variants and enables global markets to provide 24/7 markets in RWA, FX, and derivatives while retaining verifiable self-custody.

Update🔥: LayerZero's Zero mainnet and lzATLAS trading engine go live Nov. 30, with 10+ venues at launch and more to come this year; institutions are already testing in US-equity scenarios. #RWA#