Understanding LayerZero: A Comprehensive Overview

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  • Post category:Ethereum News

Key Insights

In V1, the off-network infrastructure consisted of Oracles and Relayers for verifying and executing messages. However, connecting networks with different execution and consensus mechanisms (e.g., Solana and Ethereum) required each connection to adapt its security and communication to the specific execution environments of the connecting networks. This approach posed scalability challenges and limited flexibility for developers.

DVNs and Executors are incentivized

LayerZero’s token, ZRO, launched on June 20, 2024, with a total supply of 1 billion. The protocol is allocating 23.8%

Currently, the LayerZero network has over 300 user-facing applications built on it across 80 chains, which includes 120 OFTs and 54,000 deployed OApp contracts. These OApps use LayerZero messaging for a host of use cases. The most common and high value is securely transferring assets from one network to another. This can be done via bridges or via protocols issuing OFTs and ONFTs.

A number of use cases (e.g., voting, identity, ONFTs, and gaming) do not yet have an explicit value; however, they are critical to the function of protocols. Messages without a known value have seen significant growth since March 2023, going from less than 10% of daily sent messages to 24% in June 2024 on the 10 networks measured. This growth demonstrates that developers are using LayerZero to build complex OApps that cater to a wide range of multi-network use cases, moving beyond simple asset transfers. Currently, measuring asset transfer volumes is limited, because values of certain assets are not readily available.

Stargate, the first bridge launched on LayeZero, secured over $390 million

Asset transfer volume on bridges using LayerZero averaged $2.4 billion per month from June 2023 to June 2024. In June 2024, Ethereum led asset transfers with a 37% market share ($323 million), followed by Arbitrum at 21% ($180 million) and Optimism at 11% ($93 million). This data represents a number of protocols transferring assets including: Stargate and EtherFi. These figures are based on available prices and native tokens, suggesting the actual value may be higher.

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