ZRO Price Jumps Nearly 22% as Broader Crypto Market Slides — Here’s What’s Driving It

LayerZero’s native token, ZRO, has bucked the broader market downturn, posting double-digit gains to reach a four-month high.

The rally follows the LayerZero’s unveiling of a new blockchain, backed by Citadel Securities and ARK Invest. Both firms made strategic investments through ZRO purchases.

Institutional Backing Fuels ZRO Rally While Crypto Market Slides

BeInCrypto Markets data shows the crypto market extended its decline today, following yesterday’s $19 billion in losses. Over the past 24 hours, total market capitalization has fallen by more than 2%, reflecting continued risk-off sentiment across major digital assets.

Despite the broader pullback, select altcoins have managed to post outsized gains, with ZRO being one of them. During early Asian trading hours, the token climbed to an intraday high of $2.42 on Binance.

This level was last seen in early October 2025. At the time of writing, ZRO was trading at $2.27, up nearly 22% over the past day.

The token secured the third spot among the top 300 daily gainers on CoinGecko. Trading activity has also accelerated significantly. Over the past 24 hours, the token recorded $491 million in volume, marking a 410.60% increase.

What Is LayerZero’s New Blockchain?

The rally followed LayerZero Labs’ announcement of Zero. It is a new blockchain network designed to address scalability constraints that have historically limited decentralized systems.

According to the company, Zero introduces a heterogeneous architecture. It separates transaction execution from verification using zero-knowledge proofs, eliminating the “replication requirement.”

LayerZero claims the network can scale to up to 2 million transactions per second per zone, with transaction costs as low as $0.000001. The blockchain is scheduled to launch in fall 2026.

“Zero’s architecture moves the industry’s roadmap forward by at least a decade. We believe we can actually bring the entire global economy on-chain with this technology. Our mission is to build permissionless infrastructure for a better world – this is the beginning of that world,” Bryan Pellegrino, CEO of LayerZero Labs, stated.

As part of the rollout, Citadel Securities is collaborating with LayerZero to evaluate potential applications in trading, clearing, and settlement workflows. The firm also made a strategic investment in ZRO.

ARK Invest is likewise becoming a shareholder in LayerZero and has purchased ZRO. Cathie Wood, ARK’s founder and CEO, will join the project’s advisory board.

“ZRO is the token of the network, and LayerZero will provide interoperability between Zones and across the 165+ blockchains it connects,” the announcement read.

Beyond these investments, LayerZero said it is working with The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation to explore enhancements to tokenized securities infrastructure, including scalability improvements for its DTC Tokenization Service. 

Intercontinental Exchange, parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, is examining potential applications related to 24/7 markets and tokenized collateral integration. Google Cloud is also partnering with LayerZero to explore infrastructure enabling AI agents to conduct micropayments autonomously.

Meanwhile, the development closely follows Tether’s strategic investment in LayerZero Labs through Tether Investments. Thus, the combination of strategic capital and institutional collaboration appears to have fueled investor interest in ZRO, even as the broader crypto market continues to face selling pressure.

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