Today LayerZero, the protocol that connects different blockchains, announced a major upgrade. The LayerZero V2 upgrade marks a substantial leap toward achieving a censorship-resistant, permissionless, and immutable blockchain communications protocol tailored to the dynamic Web3 landscape.
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Improving interoperability standards
LayerZero positions itself as a permissionless, censorship-resistant, and immutable omnichain interoperability protocol. LayerZero draws parallels with the standard-setting role of TCP/IP in the development of the Internet and aims to provide a unified approach to application development across diverse blockchain networks.
Since its founding in 2021, LayerZero has enabled the seamless transfer of more than 85 million messages across more than 45 blockchains, cementing its position as the blockchain industry leader.
Critical dApps in the crypto landscape, including JOE, CAKE, MIM, agEUR, BTC.b, PRIME, CANTO and MAV, use the Omnichain Fungible Token (OFT) standard. This standard allows fungible tokens to be moved across multiple blockchains without the need for asset wrapping, middlechains, or liquidity pools.
Major dApp integrations
Several influential dApps, such as Radiant, Tapioca, Stargate, and Angle, are built directly on LayerZero’s messaging protocol. This underlines LayerZero’s critical role in supporting critical applications in the crypto space.
Modular Security: V2 introduces a self-management feature for dApp developers. Application owners gain full control over their “Security Stack” by selecting and combining various Decentralized Verifier Networks (DVNs).
Throughput: To ensure optimal speed, V2 uses lazy nonce-order enforcement, allowing the maximum throughput of the destination chain.
Liveliness: V2 separates execution from verification and introduces the “Executor” as a permissionless role. This allows any participant to send verified transactions directly to blockchains.
Unified Semantics: V2 allows developers to build applications that function uniformly across any blockchain connected via LayerZero.
Additional V2 features
Easier configuration: V2 allows application owners to configure a custom Security Stack with required and optional DVNs. This addresses the concerns raised in the V1 version.
Adapters: The V2 rollout includes adapters for third-party bridges, native bridges, and oracles, which work as DVNs within LayerZero. Adapters for Axelar and CCIP are introduced.
Horizontal composability: V2 allows transactions to be stacked independently, achieving horizontal composability without freezing dApps, even if individual transactions within a bundle fail.
Insights into LayerZero Labs and future token distribution
LayerZero Labs, the entity behind LayerZero, recently raised $120 million in a Series B funding round, valuing the company at $3 billion.
Co-founder and CEO Bryan Pellegrino, with a background in professional poker, entrepreneurship and AI research, emphasized the importance of developers trusting themselves as they build on LayerZero. The team plans to distribute tokens in the first half of 2024.
“If you build on LayerZero, it’s because you don’t want to trust others; it’s because you trust yourself.”
Co-founder and CEO Bryan Pellegrino
“V2 is just an upgrade, making security easier to configure, increasing throughput, and minimizing liveness concerns through permissionless infrastructure roles,” said Brian.
For those interested in diving deeper into LayerZero and exploring the transformative V2 upgrade, visit their official website or stay up to date on updates and events by following them on X.