What Is LayerZero? How the Omnichain Messaging Protocol Works

LayerZero Labs is the company that writes and maintains the protocol code, runs one of the DVNs and acts as the default Executor ³. Bryan Pellegrino is its CEO ⁸⁹. A separate LayerZero Foundation opened the ZRO airdrop claims and bought Stargate ⁹¹¹.

LayerZero calls its core protocol "immutable, censorship-resistant and permissionless" ⁷. The company says more than 80% of all cross-chain volume moves over its rails, a figure it has not independently audited ⁶. Partner logos on its site include PayPal, Tether, Paxos, Google and Ondo ⁵.

A LayerZero message passes through four parts ¹³:

1. Endpoint (source chain): the app calls LayerZero's Endpoint contract with a message, such as "credit 100 tokens to this address on Arbitrum." Endpoints are deployed on every supported chain and cannot be upgraded ¹.
2. DVNs (Decentralized Verifier Networks): independent services watch the source chain and confirm the message's hash on the destination chain. The app chooses which DVNs to use. Required DVNs must all sign, and optional DVNs must reach a threshold (X of Y of N) ³. Providers include LayerZero Labs, Google Cloud and Polyhedra ³.
3. Executor: once the DVN requirements are met, a permissionless Executor delivers the message and pays destination gas ¹³.
4. OApp (destination chain): the app's own contract receives the message and acts on it, for example minting or releasing tokens.

Apps built for tokens follow the OFT standard. A native OFT burns tokens on the source chain and mints them on the destination chain. An OFT Adapter locks an existing token in a contract on its home chain and releases it when a message comes back ⁴. The contract owner controls the peers, libraries and DVN settings ⁴.

The point to understand: security is set per app, not by LayerZero for everyone. Two tokens that both "use LayerZero" can have very different protection.

Not in the narrow sense. LayerZero is messaging infrastructure. Bridges and tokens are built on top of it. Stargate, a liquidity bridge for moving assets between chains, is the main bridge app built on LayerZero. In August 2025 Stargate's DAO voted, with about 95% in favor, to be acquired by the LayerZero Foundation. STG holders could convert at 0.08634 ZRO per STG, and the Stargate DAO was dissolved. For six months, half of Stargate's revenue went to veSTG holders, and the rest goes to buying and burning ZRO ¹¹. Wormhole made a last-minute counter-offer that the DAO did not take up ¹¹.

Compared with lock-and-mint bridges run by one operator, LayerZero hands the trust decision to each app. That gives flexibility, but it also lets an app pick a weak configuration. See CoinPulse's bridge ratings for how the protocol is assessed against other bridges.

You pay every cost upfront on the source chain, in its native token ²:

• the source-chain gas for your transaction;
• DVN fees, split among the verifiers the app has configured;
• an Executor fee for delivery;
• destination gas, converted into the source chain's token at current prices.

Apps quote the total on-chain before you send, and the quote can change, so a quote should be fetched right before sending ²⁴. LayerZero's docs also allow fees to be paid in the "LZ token" ². Apps such as Stargate may add their own fees on top.

LayerZero's guarantees come from three places:

• Immutable Endpoints. LayerZero Labs cannot change the core contracts after deployment ¹⁷.
• App-chosen verification. Security is only as strong as the DVN set an app configures. LayerZero's docs warn that default settings are placeholders that can change. The defaults include LayerZero Labs as a required DVN and as Executor, so a single operator can control both steps. The docs recommend at least one required DVN not run by LayerZero Labs ³. The OFT docs add that with a single DVN, "one compromised verifier" can forge messages ⁴.
• Owner control. Each OApp's owner can change its peers, libraries and DVNs ⁴. Users depend on that owner's key security.

LayerZero Labs publishes audit reports in a public GitHub repository ⁷. Audits reduce risk but do not cover off-chain infrastructure such as RPC nodes, which is where the 2026 attack happened ¹².

On April 18, 2026, attackers stole about 116,500 rsETH, worth roughly $292 million, from KelpDAO's LayerZero OFT Adapter on Ethereum ¹³.

• How it worked: Kelp's rsETH route relied on a single DVN, operated by LayerZero Labs, in a 1-of-1 configuration ¹²¹³. The attackers compromised two RPC nodes that the DVN used to read chain data, by swapping their node software. They then flooded the healthy nodes with a denial-of-service attack, so the DVN failed over to the poisoned ones. The DVN confirmed a message, supposedly from Unichain, for a transaction that never existed, and the adapter released the rsETH ¹²¹³. A second forged message for 40,000 rsETH was stopped when Kelp paused its contracts 46 minutes later ¹³.
• Spread: the attacker posted the rsETH as collateral on Aave V3 and borrowed WETH against it, leaving Aave with estimated bad debt of $124–230 million ¹³¹⁴. LayerZero's preliminary attribution is North Korea's Lazarus Group (TraderTraitor) ¹².
• LayerZero's response: its first statement said the protocol "functioned exactly as intended" and pointed to Kelp's 1-of-1 choice ¹². In a May 8, 2026 apology it said it should not have let its DVN be the sole verifier for high-value transfers and had not tracked what its DVN secured. A Dune analysis cited by Kelp found the same setup in about 47% of roughly 2,665 active OApps ¹⁴.
• Changes: the LayerZero Labs DVN no longer signs for 1-of-1 setups ¹². LayerZero says defaults are moving to at least five verifiers where possible, with a floor of three. It is also building a second DVN client in Rust, raising its multisig threshold from 3-of-5 to 7-of-10, and building a Console for issuers to monitor their settings ¹⁴.
• Recovery: a "DeFi United" effort raised over $300 million. LayerZero contributed 10,000 ETH: 5,000 donated and 5,000 lent to Aave. Arbitrum DAO released 30,766 frozen ETH. Kelp announced a move to Chainlink CCIP, and Solv said it would move more than $700 million in tokenized bitcoin off LayerZero ¹⁴. As of May 2026, the official post-mortem was still pending ¹⁴.

ZRO is LayerZero's token, with a total supply of 1 billion. Claims opened on June 20, 2024. About 85 million ZRO (8.5%) went to eligible users through a "proof-of-donation" claim: claimants donated $0.10 per ZRO to Protocol Guild, a fund for Ethereum core developers, and the Foundation matched up to $10 million ⁹. Since the Stargate deal, part of Stargate's revenue funds ZRO buy-and-burn ¹¹. CoinPulse does not cover ZRO price or forecasts on this page.

On February 10, 2026, LayerZero Labs announced Zero, a new blockchain. It named Citadel Securities, DTCC, ICE and Google Cloud as collaborators and targeted a fall 2026 launch ⁸. Its site also lists ATLAS, a "headless exchange" built on Zero, and Console, a control panel for asset issuers. Both were described as launching later in 2026 ⁵⁶. Check LayerZero's site for current availability.