Empire Zero Just Made Blockchains 100x Better | Bryan Pellegrino & Raz Zarick
Feb 23, 2026
Raz Zarick, CTO and ZK expert who built Zero’s technical architecture. Bryan Pellegrino, CEO and cross-chain builder leading LayerZero’s move to an L1. They discuss Zero’s origin, why its architecture claims a 100x breakthrough, separating execution from verification, achieving massive TPS, and the roadmap and product zones for 2026.
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Why A Unified Beacon Chain Was The Right Bet
- LayerZero's origin came from deep, cross-VM experience seeing common failures across chains.
- Bryan and Raz concluded the correct long-term design is a single beacon chain owning execution, data and verification rather than many retrofit L2s.
Asset Issuers Are The Real Customers, Not Chains
- LayerZero discovered their real customers are asset issuers (USDT, WBTC, PYUSD), not chains themselves.
- They optimize for making asset distribution seamless because asset pull dictates which chains win.
ZK Proofs Remove Replication And Unlock Massive Scale
- The core breakthrough is removing replicated work via ZK proofs so validators don't redo expensive computation.
- Raz explains elimination of replication + solving storage, scheduling and network bottlenecks unlocked targets far above traditional L1s like millions of TPS.