Interoperability protocol LayerZero’s native token (ZRO) surged Thursday on news that venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz’s (a16z) crypto arm increased its investment in the project.
The company acquired additional $55 million ZRO tokens committing to a 3-year lock-up period, general partner Ali Yahya said in an X post. A16z has been an early backer of the protocol’s development firm LayerZero Labs, participating in the team’s $135 million series A fundraising round in 2022 and the following $120 million series B round in 2023.
ZRO advanced 10% to $2.56 following the announcement before shedding some of the gains. The token was recently up around 5% during the day, outperforming the broad-market CoinDesk 20 Index and bitcoin (BTC) gains.
LayerZero is a key piece of infrastructure that allows communication between isolated blockchains with cross-chain messages. The protocol underpins 125 blockchains, has facilitated over 145 million cross-chain messages and $75 billion in value transfers. Its tech supports projects such as PayPal’s stablecoin, DeFi protocols Ethena and Pendle, and was selected as an issuance partner for Wyoming’s stablecoin project.
The investment will help the protocol expand beyond interoperability to token issuance, data management, governance and improving databases, according to an email.