Gate News message, on April 3, Lighter founder and CEO Vladimir Novakovski revealed during the Q1 investor conference call that Lighter has already initiated the process of applying for a license for on-chain derivatives trading. Vladimir Novakovski said that if you want to attract large traditional financial institutions like Citadel, it would be impossible without a license.

EDX Markets has applied to the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency for a national trust bank charter, planning to provide digital asset custody and trading services to strengthen its competitiveness in the crypto industry. This move reflects how the crypto industry is rapidly moving closer to a regulated financial system.

IMC Trading has named Alex Casimo as Chief Business Officer for its cryptocurrency division to enhance its institutional crypto business. With experience from Portofino Technologies and Citadel Securities, he will operate in London, overseeing activities across 50 exchanges.

ChainCatcher reports that multiple investors have informed the market that the motivation for these institutions to purchase governance tokens is not to include them in their investment portfolios, but to lock in infrastructure access rights.

Input Output CEO Charles Hoskinson confirmed at the Consensus Hong Kong conference held in Hong Kong that an agreement has been reached with LayerZero, a cross-chain protocol that will officially connect to the Cardano blockchain. This partnership is seen as an important step for Cardano to expand its cross-chain infrastructure and enhance institutional-grade application capabilities. LayerZero has gained attention in recent years for its composable cross-chain communication architecture, aiming to provide secure and efficient multi-chain connectivity solutions for the institutional market. Just one day before the announcement, the project received a strategic investment from Citadel Securities, further strengthening its influence in the integration of traditional finance and blockchain. Meanwhile, LayerZero's mainnet Midnight was launched on the same morning, providing a key technological support point for its ecosystem expansion.

On February 11, news reports indicate that LayerZero (ZRO) has risen approximately 22.36% in the past 24 hours, with the price briefly reaching $2.45. It is currently hovering around $2.35. Driven by multiple major positive developments, ZRO's daily trading volume surged by 328%, reaching approximately $500 million, indicating a rapid influx of capital and attention. The core catalyst for this rally comes from LayerZero Labs' release of the new Layer-1 network Zero. The platform targets institutional financial markets and is scheduled to launch in Fall 2026. Zero will utilize zero-knowledge proofs and the Jolt virtual machine architecture. The official claim is that its theoretical throughput can reach 2 million transactions per second, addressing scalability and efficiency bottlenecks faced by traditional blockchains. The network will establish three permissionless "zones," governed by the underlying protocol, with ZRO serving as the native token and governance asset.

Gate News Bot Message, February 11th, according to CoinMarketCap data, as of press time, ZRO (LayerZero) is trading at $2.38, up 21.99% in the past 24 hours, reaching a high of $2.45 and a low of $1.38. The 24-hour trading volume is $494 million. The current market capitalization is approximately $703 million, an increase of $127 million from yesterday. LayerZero Foundation is committed to the decentralization and ecosystem growth of LayerZero. Through measures such as ZRO buybacks, governance participation, and ecosystem support, it promotes the long-term development of the LayerZero network. ## Recent Important News about ZRO: 1️⃣ **Institutional Capital Support and Ecosystem Expansion** Leading institutional investors such as Citadel and Ark Invest

BNY Mellon Launches Tokenized Deposit Service to Enable Clients to Transfer Funds via Blockchain, Enhancing Payment Speed. Participating Institutions include Intercontinental Exchange, Citadel Securities, and others.

Bank of New York Mellon launches tokenized deposit service, supporting fund transfers via blockchain network, enabling 24-hour operation and accelerating payment speed. Participating institutions include Intercontinental Exchange, Citadel Securities, and others. This move marks BNY's deepening involvement in the digital asset space, promoting programmable trading and collateral utilization.

According to a report by Jinse Finance, HSBC stated that the policy dispute among US regulators over tokenized stocks has recently escalated, with DeFi becoming a main regulatory target. Citadel Securities has urged the SEC to regulate DeFi protocols as exchanges. Meanwhile, the crypto industry advocates for differentiated rules for decentralized models. The controversy centers on a 13-page letter submitted by Citadel to the SEC, arguing that most DeFi protocols already meet the definition of an exchange.