Apart from the many instances where cryptocurrency holders get socially engineered (hoodwinked) into turning over their crypto or their account credentials to extremely clever and tenacious hackers (essentially, “user error”), the leading cause of cryptocurrency theft is a vulnerable cross-chain bridge. In fact, on the same day this interview with LayerZero co-founder and CEO Bryan Pellegrino was recorded at the Harvard Blockchain Conference, the AllBridge cross-chain bridge was exploited for approximately $574,000.

According to Pellegrino, approximately $4 billion has been stolen via cross-chain bridge exploits since late 2021. Pellegrino was at Harvard University’s annual blockchain conference to talk about what it takes to secure communications between chains—an area of particular interest to enterprises because, as enterprises are already learning, in the same way, that many businesses have to work with multiple fiat currencies, there’s a high likelihood that they’ll also have to deal with multiple cryptocurrencies which in turn means they’ll have to simultaneously deal with multiple public distributed ledgers. Secure inter-chain communication will be an absolute must.

As opposed to relying on smart contracts to handle cross-chain bridge management at the so-called application layer of blockchain, Pellegrino’s company has been focused on handling cross-chain bridging at the protocol layer; a layer that, like the Internet’s TCP/IP protocol, lives below the blockchain layer itself. Thus, the company’s name “LayerZero” (an implication that the lowest layer in the software stack where a blockchain exists is at layer 1, an idea that aligns with the way many different public distributed ledgers are described as “L1s”). 

While he was at Harvard’s Blockchain Conference, Pellegrino told BlockchainJournal.com editor-in-chief David Berlind that LayerZero has successfully secured over $7 billion, has over 35,000 applications running on its test net, with 3,500 apps now in production on the LayerZero main net. Said Pellegrino of LayerZero’s industrial strength, “You take a look at [which venture capitalists’] confidence have we [have] won; Sequoia, Andreessen, all these groups have made single bets in the space, and that bet has been on us.”

Aside from operating at the protocol level, what’s LayerZero’s secret to success? Well for starters, all of the code behind LayerZero has been purpose-built from scratch. Beyond that, are three convictions that are sacrosanct to everything LayerZero does; immutability, permissionlessness, and resistance to censorship.

To watch the video version of this podcast or read its full-text transcript, go to:
https://blockchainjournal.com/interview/why-layerzero-might-be-a-contender-enterprises-need-crosschain-bridges/

The video can also be watched on Blockchain Journal's YouTube Channel at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4pH02yaPbA

Why LayerZero Is A Contender For Enterprises In Need Of Cross-Chain Bridges

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