From the "Full-Chain Interoperability Protocol" to the "Decentralized Multi-Core World Computer," what does LayerZero want to do?

Article by: Yangz, Techub News

In the recent overall sluggish market, the announcement released by LayerZero this morning has become a rare bright spot. Its token ZRO responded with a surge, quickly climbing from about $1.8 to a high of $2.4, an increase of over 30%.

The market’s keen reaction did not come out of nowhere. As early as late January, the LayerZero team had already previewed to the community that significant progress would be announced on February 11. Last night, a report from AggrNews further revealed the suspense ahead of time: LayerZero plans to launch an independent blockchain network called “Zero.” Although this news originated from a deleted YouTube video, the information leaked was enough to attract market attention. Coupled with Tether’s subsequent announcement of strategic investment in LayerZero Labs, explicitly stating they will jointly promote the development of blockchain interoperability infrastructure, countless investors are now speculating about LayerZero’s “next move.”

At 5:30 a.m. Beijing time this morning, the culmination of recent market speculation arrived as LayerZero published a document outlining the vision for “Zero.” This lengthy, several-thousand-word file revealed an ambitious concept beyond market expectations: LayerZero aims to build not just a new chain, but a “multi-core world computer” designed to redefine blockchain architecture paradigms.

So, how does LayerZero’s vision differ from existing blockchain solutions? What industry problems does it seek to solve?

Decentralized “Multi-Core” World Computer

Throughout the evolution of blockchain technology, countless projects have explored within the maze of the “impossible triangle.”

Ethereum’s evolution is the most representative. After abandoning the initial plan to create a “world computer” through sharding, Ethereum shifted in 2020 to a Layer 2 solution centered on Rollups. However, this path was personally overturned by Vitalik Buterin five years later. Recently, Vitalik admitted, “The vision of Layer 2 as a ‘branding sharding’ is no longer valid.”

Unlike Ethereum, single-chain projects like Solana pursue extreme performance with a focus on a single execution thread. By raising hardware requirements and optimizing parallel processing, they achieve high throughput but at the cost of highly specialized node operation and a trend toward validator centralization.

Meanwhile, multi-chain models represented by Cosmos and Polkadot attempt to replace “unification” with “connection.” They link sovereign or parallel chains through standardized communication protocols (IBC) or shared security leasing markets (parachain slots). This creates a flexible but complex “multi-chain universe,” but at the expense of security fragmentation, fragmented user experience, and dispersed development and liquidity.

Over the past few years, LayerZero has been one of the key infrastructure builders in this “multi-chain universe,” focusing on constructing an efficient cross-chain communication layer. Now, with the release of the Zero concept, LayerZero’s ambitions are clear: it is no longer satisfied with merely “connecting” existing architectures but aims to propose and build a fundamentally different new architecture. It believes that the fragmentation of Ethereum L2s, the centralization trend of Solana, and the complexity and disjointedness of multi-chain systems all stem from a common underlying design limitation: the requirement for all network nodes to perform homogeneous redundant validation of execution.

LayerZero’s answer is to return to the original intention of the “world computer,” but with a completely new design formula: a single system that uses zero-knowledge proofs (ZK) to achieve native separation of execution and validation, with a unified security layer and state, capable of parallel operation of multiple heterogeneous execution environments. It aims to address decentralization, security, high performance, and a unified user experience all in one design.

Technical Foundations

The core of Zero’s technical implementation revolves around one principle: reconstruct trust through cryptography and reorganize division of labor through architecture.

First, Zero seeks to break the “homogenization” fate of blockchain nodes. Zero clearly divides network participants into two categories: block producers and block verifiers. Producers focus on execution, requiring high-performance hardware to process transactions and generate zero-knowledge proofs; verifiers focus on validation, only needing to verify the correctness of these proofs, which can be done with ordinary consumer-grade hardware. This division is revolutionary because it abstracts complex application logic verification into a purely cryptographic problem via zero-knowledge proofs. Verifiers do not need to understand DeFi or gaming rules specifically; they only need to confirm the validity of mathematical proofs. This allows the network to maintain low participation barriers (ensuring decentralization) while enabling the execution layer to pursue maximum performance.

Second, the specific vehicle supporting this division is the Atomicity Zone. Each zone is an independent execution environment, optimized for specific types of applications. However, unlike Cosmos’s fully autonomous security model for each chain, all Atomicity Zones in Zero share a unified security layer, consensus, and global state provided by the Zero main chain.

To realize the potential of this architecture, Zero tackles four fundamental bottlenecks:

Storage Layer: Its self-developed QMDB database abandons the inefficient Merkle tree structure, designed for continuous read/write characteristics of modern SSDs, theoretically capable of handling 3 million updates per second—100 times faster than existing blockchain state databases.

Compute Scheduling: The FAFO system automatically analyzes data dependencies among transactions, intelligently parallelizing non-conflicting transactions without developer intervention. LayerZero claims this system is 2,500 times faster than BNB Chain, with a single node capable of processing over 1.2 million EVM transactions per second.

Proof Generation: On top of a16z’s Jolt architecture, the Jolt Pro proof system is developed, greatly increasing the speed of zero-knowledge proof generation. It is claimed that this system proves RISC-V about 100 times faster than current zkVMs.

Network Layer: The creation of the SVID protocol allows verifiers to confirm data integrity by randomly checking tiny data fragments, drastically reducing network load. Theoretically, it can provide throughput up to 10 GiB/s—more than 1,000 times faster than PeerDAS.

Capital Backing and Community Scrutiny

With its grand vision and technological advantages, Zero has attracted key support from traditional finance and crypto capital. Its advisory board includes prominent figures such as Cathie Wood, founder of ARK Invest; Michael Blaugrund, Strategic Vice President of Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), parent company of NYSE; and Caroline Butler, former head of digital assets at BNY Mellon and former chair of the CFTC Digital Assets Committee. Its partners include major market makers Citadel Securities, the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), and the previously mentioned ICE. Coupled with Tether’s confirmed strategic investment, Zero’s capital backing is very strong.

However, within the crypto community, Zero still faces scrutiny. Some critics question whether its technical discourse contains marketing tactics that “belittle others and elevate itself.” Additionally, competitors’ responses are more pointed. Anatoly Yakovenko, co-founder of Solana, commented meaningfully: “Well, I understand what’s going on. You did benchmarks on the testnet, which is great. But you don’t even know what it feels like to run a robot. Marketing tactics never change,” subtly pointing out the potential gap between ideal testnet conditions and real-world scenarios.

Conclusion

LayerZero’s launch of Zero is undoubtedly a high-stakes gamble involving technology, capital, and ecosystem development. It bets that by integrating cryptography (ZK) and system architecture innovation, it can build the “first truly scalable multi-core world computer.”

Although its grand blueprint still faces the severe challenge of practical implementation (LayerZero plans to officially launch Zero this fall), the very proposal of Zero may carry significance beyond just a technical solution. Given the current market’s relative silence and the likely trend toward a “bear market,” Zero exemplifies “building in a bear market,” prompting the entire industry to reconsider: what kind of “world computer” do we really need?