Briefing

Citadel Securities, DTCC Partner LayerZero Launches New Exchange

The new exchange, called ATLAS, will target financial institutions that are looking to trade assets on blockchain.
By
Yueqi Yang
Source:The Information

LayerZero, a blockchain infrastructure startup that counts Citadel Securities, DTCC, and Intercontinental Exchange among its partners, said it’s launching a new blockchain-based exchange targeting financial institutions this fall.

Unlike major crypto exchanges, LayerZero’s new exchange, called ATLAS, will not have a consumer-facing application and will instead serve as the underlying exchange for other trading platforms and financial institutions. “We can provide this product—this market—here, and they open that up to all of the brokers, who then open those up to all of those customers,” said Bryan Pellegrino, co-founder and CEO of LayerZero. It will start by offering trading of spot crypto tokens and perpetual futures, with plans to support prediction contracts, futures and options later.

LayerZero is the biggest blockchain bridge provider, allowing traders to move assets between different blockchains, and transferred nearly $9 billion in the past month. It was valued at $3 billion in a fundraising round in 2023 and counts Tether, a16z crypto, Sequoia Capital among its investors.

The exchange will be built on Zero, the new blockchain announced by LayerZero in February. Citadel Securities, DTCC and Intercontinental Exchange, the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, are among the partners exploring uses for the new blockchain. “We will have some of the world’s best market makers on ATLAS on day one providing liquidity,” said Pellegrino, who declined to specify which firms would participate.

In April, LayerZero’s blockchain bridge suffered a $292 million hack which prompted customers of Aave, the largest decentralized lending platform, to withdraw deposits at Aave. LayerZero said it changed its configuration after the hack to require more than one single-verifier for transactions, and it changed its operational infrastructure where the compromise happened. It didn’t pay any damages following the hack.