Cardano Taps LayerZero to Access $80B in Omnichain Liquidity

• Cardano has integrated LayerZero, enabling the blockchain to tap into a massive network of over 150 chains and $80 billion in omnichain assets.
• The integration came on the same day that Hoskinson announced that Midnight Network’s mainnet would roll out before the end of March.

Cardano has revealed that it’s integrating LayerZero in “the largest cross-chain connectivity expansion in Cardano’s history.” The integration follows a decision taken by the Cardano Foundation, the Input Output Group, Emurgo, the Midnight Foundation and Intersect.

Founder Charles Hoskinson announced the new integration at the ongoing Consensus Conference in Hong Kong. Intersect, a member-based organization for the Cardano community, followed it up with its own announcement in which it broke down what the integration means for developers and users.

LayerZero is an interoperability protocol that enables over 100 blockchains to communicate and move assets between each other. It supports an omnichain setup, where one dApp can operate natively across multiple chains without the need for a separate implementation for each chain. LayerZero unveiled its own new chain, known as Zero and powered by the ZRO token, on Wednesday, with Citadel Securities and ARK Invest as the first investors.

As we have previously reported, other major networks are connected to LayerZero. IOTA connected last December, Stellar connected in November and TON connected last February.

According to Intersect, the integration will unlock access to 150+ blockchains, enable access to 400+ tokens and open up over $80 billion in omnichain assets.

Cardano’s Biggest Cross-Chain Connectivity Upgrade

Some of the Cardano network’s most important organizations have hailed the integration as one of the most important in the network’s history.

Intersect stated:

The Cardano Foundation dubbed it “the largest interoperability unlock in our ecosystem’s history” and a major milestone for the entire ecosystem.

In his keynote address at Consensus Hong Kong, Hoskinson revealed that his team has been in talks with LayerZero for several months over the integration.

In the same keynote, Hoskinson also revealed that the Midnight Network’s mainnet would roll out before the end of March. As we reported, Midnight first launched its testnet late last year, with the NIGHT token now amassing $829 million in market cap. Hoskinson pledged at the start of the year that the mainnet would launch this year to allow developers to deploy their natively-private apps, and now, he says it’s only a few weeks away.

In a separate address at Consensus, Midnight Foundation President Fahmi Syed added that the network has created a mini simulation, “almost like Sim City,” where users can start creating their own avatars and participating in the Midnight economy by end of February. Syed noted that explaining what programmable privacy means can be difficult, but on the mini simulation, users can actively learn through participation.

ADA trades at $0.2665, gaining 6% in the past day for a $9.6 billion market cap.