LayerZero (ZRO) surged nearly 22% to a four-month high of $2.42 during early Asian trading hours on Feb. 11, defying a broader crypto market decline of more than 2%, after LayerZero Labs unveiled a new blockchain called Zero backed by strategic investments from Citadel Securities and ARK Invest.
What Happened: ZRO Rally on Institutional Backing
LayerZero Labs announced Zero, a blockchain network designed to tackle scalability limits in decentralized systems.
The network uses a heterogeneous architecture that separates transaction execution from verification through zero-knowledge proofs, claiming capacity of up to 2 million transactions per second per zone at costs as low as $0.000001.
Zero introduces what the company described as four "100x breakthroughs" across storage, compute, networking, and zk proving.
The blockchain is scheduled to launch in fall 2026.
"Zero's architecture moves the industry's roadmap forward by at least a decade," Bryan Pellegrino, CEO of LayerZero Labs, said. "We believe we can actually bring the entire global economy on-chain with this technology."
As part of the rollout, Citadel Securities is working with LayerZero to evaluate applications in trading, clearing, and settlement, while also making a strategic investment in ZRO.
ARK Invest became a shareholder in LayerZero and purchased ZRO, with founder and CEO Cathie Wood joining the project's advisory board. The announcement also noted partnerships with The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation, Intercontinental Exchange, and Google Cloud, alongside a recent strategic investment from Tether through Tether Investments.
At the time of writing, ZRO was trading at $2.27 with $491M in 24-hour volume, a 410.60% increase. The token ranked third among the top 300 daily gainers on CoinGecko.
Also Read: Ethereum Stalls Below $2,050 As Bears Tighten Grip
Why It Matters: Institutional Capital Meets Scaling Claims
The combination of institutional names rarely seen in token-level crypto investments sets this announcement apart. Citadel Securities, one of the largest market makers in traditional finance, evaluating blockchain-based settlement workflows signals growing interest from major trading firms in on-chain infrastructure.
Wood's decision to join the advisory board and ARK's direct ZRO purchase suggest conviction beyond a passive allocation.
The involvement of DTCC and ICE — entities that underpin much of the U.S. securities market plumbing — further elevates the stakes around Zero's scalability promises, though those claims remain unproven yet ahead of the fall 2026 launch.
Read Next: Third-Largest Bitcoin Miner Sells 4,451 BTC Marking Pivot To AI