LayerZero is known as a blockchain interoperability protocol, with the foundation today unveiling a new permissionless blockchain, Zero, which it describes as “the last blockchain”. It claims to solve the speed and scalability constraints that have held back DLT adoption, especially by large market infrastructures. Three major traditional finance institutions will be exploring the potential, including the DTCC, NYSE owner the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) and Citadel Securities, with Citadel investing in the ZRO token. Additionally Google Cloud wants to explore usage for AI micropayments.
The developers say the Zero blockchain supports two million transactions per second and involves 100x improvements across storage, compute, network speed and zero knowledge proofs. In many distributed ledgers that use Ethereum virtual machines (EVMs), each full node verifies and executes every transaction independently. Doing away with this replication is one of the keys to Zero’s scalability. It achieves this by using Jolt, an open source virtual machine developed by a16zCrypto, which Zero runs on graphics processors (GPUs) for enhanced performance.
Zero’s blockchain represents a significant advancement, but is also emerging technology. While Citadel Securities is embracing the technology, the financial market infrastructures are slightly more guarded. The DTCC, which has a more-or-less monopoly over the settlement of US listed securities, will explore Zero’s technology to enhance the scalability of its Collateral App Chain and the DTC Tokenization Service, the one that recently received a no action letter from the SEC.
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