ZRO token surges as LayerZero unveils ATLAS exchange infrastructure built on Zero blockchain

LayerZero, a blockchain interoperability protocol helping cross-chain transfers, has announced ATLAS, new exchange infrastructure for trading platforms and financial institutions.ATLAS, short for Aggregated Trading, Liquidity and Settlement, is built on the Zero blockchain that LayerZero announced in February in collaboration with Citadel Securities, DTCC, ARK Invest and Intercontinental Exchange. Zero is designed for financial markets and uses zero-knowledge proofs to verify trades onchain.LayerZero said ATLAS is a "headless exchange," meaning it does not have its own consumer app or trading platform. Crypto exchanges, brokers, and financial institutions can use ATLAS at the backend while keeping their own users and interface.LayerZero said that with ATLAS, trading platforms won't have to build infrastructure themselves or rely on a competing exchange, and that the system brings matching, clearing, settlement, and risk management into one place instead of handling them separately.ATLAS will support both "open" and institutional markets. Open markets can serve crypto apps, prediction markets, and other public trading products, while institutional markets can set their own rules for who can trade and under what conditions."The world's global asset base is expanding faster than ever before. It is globally accessible, continuously available, and includes an increasingly large number of assets with sufficient depth and liquidity to build meaningful markets around," said Bryan Pellegrino, co-founder and CEO of LayerZero. "We built ATLAS to be the neutral, performant backend to power them all."ATLAS will connect three main groups: trading venues, market creators and market makers. Trading venues will run user-facing platforms. Market creators will define the assets and markets that trade, including spot tokens, perpetuals, stocks, commodities, bonds, memes and prediction markets. Market makers will provide liquidity.ZRO token's roleLayerZero also detailed the role of (ZRO) in ATLAS and Zero. ZRO will secure Zero through delegated proof-of-stake, serve as the gas token and be used for governance. Trading venues can also stake ZRO to qualify for higher fee rebates on ATLAS, with the highest tier requiring up to 1% of ZRO supply.ATLAS will charge one all-in trading fee. In Open ATLAS, trading venues will receive rebates ranging from 20% to 65%, based on ZRO stake and/or trading volume. After that rebate, 25% of the remaining fees will go to market creators, and 75% will be used to buy and burn ZRO, according to LayerZero.LayerZero said ATLAS is expected to launch later this year.The project expands LayerZero beyond its core interoperability business. LayerZero said its Omnichain Fungible Token (OFT) Standard has supported more than $290 billion in cross-chain volume across more than 160 blockchains, including stablecoins and tokenized stocks.The launch comes as a number of firms have recently moved cross-chain operations from LayerZero to Chainlink following an April attack on Kelp DAO's rsETH bridge. The attack resulted in the loss of 116,500 rsETH, worth about $292 million at the time, from the LayerZero-enabled bridge.Jack Melnick, who recently joined LayerZero from Berachain to lead strategy for Zero and ATLAS, said in an X post that ATLAS is the first product built on top of Zero. He compared LayerZero's move into exchange infrastructure to how custodian banks became central to settlement and later added trading services around the assets they already handled.ZRO, LayerZero's native token, surged following the announcement. It was up more than 16% over the past 24 hours and trading at $1.26, according to The Block's ZRO price page.Disclaimer: The Block is an independent media outlet that delivers news, research, and data. As of November 2023, Foresight Ventures is a majority investor of The Block. Foresight Ventures invests in other companies in the crypto space. Crypto exchange Bitget is an anchor LP for Foresight Ventures. The Block continues to operate independently to deliver objective, impactful, and timely information about the crypto industry. Here are our current financial disclosures.© 2026 The Block. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.