Morning Minute: Layer Zero Debuts Most Spectacular Blockchain Tech Improve in Years

Morning Minute is a every day publication written by Tyler Warner. The evaluation and opinions expressed are his personal and don’t essentially mirror these of Decrypt. Subscribe to the Morning Minute on Substack.

GM!

At this time’s prime information:

• Crypto majors fall 2-3% forward of jobs report; BTC at $67,300
• Layer Zero proclaims Zero chain with main backing and partnerships
• SBF requests new trial after firing lawyer, claims new proof
• Robinhood crypto income slows, prediction market progress 4x’s
• Polymarket proclaims consideration marketes powered by Kaito AI

🖥️ LayerZero Drops a New Blockchain—and Wall Avenue Confirmed Up

Crucial blockchain tech of the last decade could have simply arrived.

And the most important gamers in finance are taking notice.

📌 What Occurred

Yesterday, LayerZero Labs unveiled Zero, a brand new L1 blockchain concentrating on 2 million transactions per second (TPS) per Zone.

For perspective, that TPS goal is roughly 100,000x Ethereum and 500x Solana.

It launches fall 2026 with three preliminary zones: a general-purpose EVM setting, a privacy-focused funds system, and a purpose-built buying and selling venue.

And it’s obtained some severe backing and companions lined up:

• Citadel Securities purchased ZRO tokens immediately and is collaborating on buying and selling, clearing, and settlement workflows
• ARK Make investments took fairness + tokens and Cathie Wooden joins the advisory board
• DTCC will discover Zero for its tokenization service and collateral administration
• ICE (NYSE’s mother or father) is inspecting Zero for twenty-four/7 buying and selling and tokenized collateral
• Google Cloud partnered to discover AI agent micropayments on-chain
• Tether introduced a separate strategic funding the identical day, backing the LayerZero infrastructure powering USDt0 ($70B+ in cross-chain transfers in beneath a yr)

But it surely’s the structure that makes Zero totally different from the final dozen “institutional blockchain” tasks.

Each blockchain in the present day is homogeneous, which suggests each validator downloads, processes, and verifies each transaction. It’s like operating an organization the place each worker does each job.

Zero makes use of ZK proofs to interrupt that mannequin. Block Producers deal with the heavy lifting: executing transactions, constructing blocks, and producing proofs. Block Validators simply confirm the proofs, making it low-cost sufficient to run on client {hardware}.

That cut up is what makes it heterogeneous, and it’s the inspiration for operating a number of “Atomicity Zones” in parallel, like concurrent processes on a multi-core CPU.

🗣️ What They’re Saying

“Zero’s structure strikes the trade’s roadmap ahead by at the very least a decade,” stated LayerZero CEO Bryan Pellegrino. “We imagine we are able to really deliver all the world financial system onchain with this expertise.”

“It is a historic alternative on the intersection of finance and the web,” stated Cathie Wooden.

Google Cloud’s Head of Web3 Technique Richard Widmann: “As AI brokers begin to develop into financial actors, the programmability of cryptocurrencies and blockchains would require infrastructure as dependable because the cloud itself.”

🧠 Why It Issues

If Zero’s structure works as described, it’s attacking an actual downside in blockchains: redundant replication.

Ethereum forces each validator to do the identical work, which is safe and decentralized… however very inefficient.

Solana improves throughput by elevating {hardware} necessities, which works… however pushes the community towards fewer operators (much less decentralized).

Zero is principally saying: cease selecting decentralization or safety.

Make verification low-cost sufficient that house validators can nonetheless exist at scale, and push execution right into a producer class that competes to generate proofs. Then run a number of “cores” (Zones) in parallel so the chain isn’t a single world visitors jam.

After all, this entire pitch lives or dies on implementation particulars:

• Can the proving stack really sustain in actual time beneath adversarial circumstances?
• Do “elective” producers find yourself changing into the de facto gatekeepers anyway?
• Does governance + delegated stake keep decentralized in follow?

However the imaginative and prescient and path make sense. And clearly among the largest gamers on the earth acknowledge it.

Now let’s see if Bryan and crew can pull it off…

🌎 Macro Crypto and Markets

• Crypto majors are crimson down 2-3% forward of in the present day’s jobs report; BTC -2% at $67.1K; ETH -2% at $1,960; SOL -3% at $81; XRP -2% at ~$1.37
• ZRO (+32%), RIVER (+14%) and ASTER (+4%) led prime movers
• LayerZero introduced its personal L1 blockchain known as Zero, backed by Citadel Securities and Ark Make investments, with Google Cloud and DTCC partnerships
• Tether Investments made a strategic funding in LayerZero Labs, the protocol behind USDt0 simply hours forward of the Zero announcement
• Goldman Sachs disclosed holding $1.1B of BTC and $1B of ETH, making up 0.33% of its portfolio
• SBF filed a professional se movement for a brand new trial after firing his lawyer, doubtlessly opening a path for him to get out of jail
• Ray Dalio warned CBDCs will remove monetary privateness in an interview with Tucker Carlson, calling them inevitable but in addition “not that massive of a deal” as a retailer of worth
• Robinhood missed This fall income expectations at $1.28B vs. $1.35B anticipated; crypto income fell 38% YoY to $221M as BTC dropped 23% in This fall whereas prediction market quantity spiked 4x
• SafeMoon CEO Braden Karony acquired a 100-month jail sentence for securities fraud, wire fraud, and cash laundering; ordered to forfeit $7.5M
• Kraken moved CFO Stephanie Lemmerman to an advisory position forward of the alternate’s deliberate IPO

Company Treasuries & ETFs

Meme Coin Tracker

• Meme majors have been principally crimson; DOGE -3%, SHIB -2%, PEPE -2%, TRUMP -4%, PENGU -3%, FARTCOIN -6%
• CopperInu (+50%) led notable Solana movers

💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker

• Monad introduced Nitro as a 3-month accelerator program with $500k in funding for successful groups
• MoonPay introduced a partnership with Deel to allow stablecoins for companies and permit salaries paid in stables
• Ondo Finance launched perps for shares in MetaMask
• Robinhood launched its public testnet for its Robinhood Chain constructed on Arbitrum
• USDAi introduced an ICO on Coinlist for its CHIP token at $300M FDV
• Polymarket introduced the launch of consideration markets powered by Kaito AI

🚚 What is occurring in NFTs?

• NFT leaders have been principally crimson; Punks even at 29.9 ETH, Pudgy -1% at 4.34 ETH, BAYC -1% at 6.12 ETH; Hypurr’s +7% at 475 HYPE
• Bankr Membership (+40%) led notable movers
• Pudgy Penguins teased a brand new bank card in partnership with Kast