Today we are going to talk about a king-level project that has not yet been launched. Since no coins have been issued, you can short-sell it. It is a very good opportunity and should not be missed. Because we talked about Radiant yesterday, and its bottom layer uses layerzero, right? It’s this technology, so what we’re talking about today is Layerzero. It was founded in 21 and is currently valued at US$3 billion. This valuation would put it in the top 30 in the current market value rankings. It is the same market value as ATOM, the king of cross-chains. Is it powerful? Okay, let’s take a look at it today.

1. Project Introduction

LayerZero is a trustless full-chain interoperability protocol and an inter-blockchain communication platform designed for delivering lightweight information across chains, providing true and guaranteed messaging through configurable trustlessness. LayerZero provides a powerful underlying communication network structure on which various cross-chain application sets can be built, breaking the isolation of blockchains from each other. For developers, LayerZero can seamlessly link applications, eliminate obstacles between different blockchains, and achieve efficient and accurate information exchange. For users, it allows transactions to be conducted between different chains, improving liquidity. .

2. Project Vision

LayerZero cannot simply be understood as an asset cross-chain bridge (that is, transferring assets on chain A to chain B), but a lower-level infrastructure protocol than the L1 public chain, which enables higher-level message cross-chains, thereby breaking through the gap between chains. Island effect between chains. What LayerZero wants to do more is to build a richer cross-chain ecosystem based on the LayerZero protocol and provide the network infrastructure and message transmission layer for the entire chain ecosystem.

3. Features and advantages

1. Features

 

The most prominent feature of LayerZero is its ultra-lightweight node, which uses ultra-light node technology to transmit messages between endpoints of different chains through relays and oracles, reducing costs while ensuring security.

(1) Ultra-light node

 

First of all, each node in the blockchain network is actually every computer or server terminal that stores data. Light nodes are just an operating mode of the node. Different from full nodes, light nodes only store blockchain data. A small part of the block, such as the block header and some other information, does not store the specific transaction information within the block. Compared with light nodes, ultra-light nodes have the same verification method as light nodes on the chain, but do not retain all block headers. Instead, they transmit streaming block headers on demand through the oracle, thereby more efficiently synchronizing entities outside the chain. achieve the desired state.

 

(2) Core components of LayerZero

 

According to the LayerZero white paper, LayerZero has two core components, namely the Oracle and the Relayer.

The oracle is a third-party service that provides a mechanism component independent of other LayerZero. It can read a block header from one chain and send it to another chain, so that the validity of the transaction on the source chain can be verified on the target chain. sex. LayerZero uses Chainlink as its oracle.

A relay is an off-chain service that is functionally similar to an oracle, but instead of getting block headers, it gets proofs of specified transactions. To ensure efficient delivery, the only requirement is that the oracle and relay must be independent of each other for any given message sent using the LayerZero protocol. LayerZero can even implement its own relay service. This design allows users to be sure that relays cannot collude with oracles. This independence enables LayerZero to achieve trustless verification delivery.

The block header submitted by the oracle will be cross-verified with the transaction proof submitted by the relay. The two do not form any consensus and only transmit messages. To put it simply, the oracle acts as a notary in LayerZero's cross-chain, letting the target chain know the results of the verification, while the relay is responsible for providing the certification process required to verify the transaction and the specific content of the cross-chain information.

According to the LayerZero white paper, when a cross-chain message is to be transmitted (for example, from chain A to chain B), the smart contract of LayerZeroEndpoint needs to be called first. The ultra-light node on chain A receives this task and sends the message (transaction proof and block header) and package the information going to the B chain to remind the oracle and relay outside the chain respectively. The oracle and the relay here are independent of each other, and under the chain, it is impossible for the two to collude. The machine gets the block header information, and the relay gets the transaction proof; when the ultra-light node on the B chain receives the block header message from the oracle machine, the relay submits the corresponding transaction proof again. Only when the block header message and the proof message match , the real message content will be sent to the B chain to complete cross-chain communication.

Both oracles and relays can be customized. Users can only use LayerZero's light nodes, and then use different relays from LayerZero, and different oracles from Chainlink.

 

4. Team background

 

LayerZero Labs was founded in 2021.

Ryan Zarick: Co-founder and CTO of LayerZero Labs. He graduated from the University of New Hampshire in the United States with a master's degree in computer science. 2011.11 – 2013.03 Served as CTO of BuzzDraft; 2010.09 – 2020.13 Served as co-founder of Coder Den; 2018.01 – 2020.03 Served as co-founder of 80Trill; 2019.06 – 2021.01 Served as co-founder of Minimal AI; Founded LayerZero in 2021 and served as C TO.

 

Bryan Pellegrino: Co-founder and CEO of LayerZero Labs, graduated from the University of New Hampshire in the United States, majoring in computer science. 2010.10 – 2013.01 Served as co-founder and COO of Coder Den; 2011.06 – 2013.01 served as CEO of BuzzDraft; 2017.10 – 2019.08 served as co-founder of OpenToken; 2016.06 – to present, serves as chief engineer of Rho AI; founded LayerZero in 2021. Before founding LayerZero, Pellegrino was a professional poker player (I heard he won the world championship in poker). He also founded a machine learning company with Ryan Zarick and successfully sold a set of machine learning tools to a company. An MLB team.

 

Caleb Banister: Founder of LayerZero Labs, graduated from the University of New Hampshire in the United States, majoring in computer science. 2005.06 – 2010.12 Served as a software developer at the UNH Interoperability Laboratory; 2010.09 – 2021.02 Served as the co-founder of Coder Den; 2018.03 – 2021.02 Served as the co-founder of 80Trill; 2019.06 – 2021.02 Served as the co-founder of Minimal AI; Founded in 2021 LayerZero.

 

5. Financing information

In April 2021, it received a seed round of financing of US$2 million.

 

In September 2021, LayerZero Labs completed a US$6.3 million Series A financing, led by Multicoin and Binance Labs, with participation from Sino Global Capital, Defiance, Delphi Digital, Robot Ventures, Spartan, Hypersphere Ventures, Protocol Ventures, Gen Block Capital, etc.

 

In March 2022, LayerZero Labs completed a $135 million A+ round of financing at a valuation of $1 billion. A16z, FTX Ventures, and Sequoia Capital co-led the investment, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, PayPal Ventures, Tiger Global, and Uniswap Labs.

 

In April 2023, LayerZero Labs completed a US$120 million Series B financing at a valuation of US$3 billion, with participation from a16z Crypto, Christie's Auction House, Sequoia Capital, Samsung Next, BOND, Circle Ventures and OpenSea Ventures.

It can be seen that LayerZero has been favored by many large capitals from the beginning, and has received US$263 million in financing so far. The project has sufficient funds to support the advancement of technical products and ensure the long-term development and operation of the project.

 

Play short

Because the project has not yet issued coins, we can also short-sell it. Anyway, it doesn’t cost much to try it. If you can get it, you will definitely make money.

 

1. stg (Stargate), you can pay attention to it. This is an official cross-chain protocol of Layerzero.

2. Radiant has now adopted Layerzero’s technology, which was mentioned in yesterday’s program.

3. Avault is a full-chain income project. For example, if you save assets on the Ethereum chain to arb, and then obtain income on the arb chain, there is no need to cross the chain again. This is so convenient. In the future, if your assets are on BSC, you can go to MATIC to obtain income. Avault has not issued airdrops yet.

4. It is recommended to do Hashflow Arb chain interaction (token has been issued), which can enrich the interaction data of the arb chain, and the gas can be ignored.

5. Holograph test network interaction.

6.SushiSwap

7: Rage Trade test network (full chain perpetual contract.)

8: Mugen Finance (multi-chain aggregator)

9: InterSwap (cross-chain)

10：CashmereLabs

11：Omni X

12: gh0stlygh0sts (multi-chain NFT cross-chain)

13: TrantorNetwork (still cross-chain, doing og and the like, looks pua, I don’t want to do it)

14：omnisea

15：0DayProject

16: Catddle (a pet game based on Layerzero)

17: LzDomains (domain name.)

18: OpenLuck (imitation opensea)

19: Cedro Finance (Lending.)