1) Executive summary

LayerZero $ZRO enables secure, permissionless messaging between blockchains. It provides immutable endpoint contracts deployed across 160+ networks, allowing applications to send data and transfer value across chains without relying on a single trusted intermediary. Developers configure their own security by selecting from independent Decentralized Verifier Networks (DVNs) and Executors, who verify and deliver cross-chain messages respectively. LayerZero's infrastructure underpins products such as the Omnichain Fungible Token (OFT) standard, which enables native token transfers without wrapped assets, and Stargate, a cross-chain bridge acquired by the LayerZero Foundation in August 2025. As of this report, the value secured by the OFT Standard sits at $87b and historical value transfer is over $175b. 

In Q4 2025, LayerZero transfer volume surged to an all-time quarterly high, rising over 60% quarter-over-quarter and nearly ninefold year-over-year, driven by growth in OFT value transfer by teams like Ethena, USDT0, and PayPal USD. Fees paid to DVNs and Executors declined by more than half, reflecting a normalization from elevated Q3 levels that included anomalous high-fee days. MAU declined modestly quarter-over-quarter but fell nearly 40% year-over-year from the Q4 2024 peak driven by the ZRO token distribution, which generated elevated wallet activity that has since subsided. ZRO FDV contracted alongside the broader market. 

The product mix continued to consolidate around LayerZero, which accounted for virtually all transfer volume and over half of fees. Stargate, reintegrated into the LayerZero ecosystem following its August 2025 acquisition, contributed a disproportionate share of fees relative to its transfer volume, reflecting a higher fee rate per dollar transferred or swapped across chains. LayerZero v1 contract activity continued its decline toward negligible levels across all metrics.

🔑 Key metrics (Q4 2025)

  • Transfer volume: $52.31b (+63.64% QoQ, +774.70% YoY)

  • Fees: $1.04m (-53.16% QoQ, -52.54% YoY)

  • Monthly active users: 198.19k (-4.14% QoQ, -38.90% YoY)

  • Fully diluted market cap: $1.57b (-21.61% QoQ, -65.81% YoY)

👥 LayerZero team commentary

"Q4 capped the most significant year in LayerZero's history. Transfer volume hit an all-time quarterly high, up 774% year-over-year. OFT adoption grew 173%, with OFT volume surpassing traditional bridge volume for the first time in April 2025. The project now secures over $87b in assets across 750+ OFTs, with 160+ blockchains connected and 703+ applications deployed on LayerZero infrastructure – a figure that would rank sixth among all chains. 

The other metrics in this report require context. Fees are paid to DVNs and Executors, not to LayerZero. The project operates at a 0% take rate by design. Messaging fees captured in this report represent one of multiple potential ZRO-accruing revenue streams; Stargate revenue, which already funds ongoing ZRO buybacks, is not reflected in the fees metric. MAU declined year-over-year, but the peak it is being compared against was driven by the ZRO token distribution in late 2024. Organic usage has been stable for two quarters. FDV declined alongside a market-wide drawdown, during a period when over $160m in ZRO has been bought back.

Once Zero, the recently announced blockchain from LayerZero, launches then ZRO will capture all fees from it along with Stargate swap fees, and eventually LayerZero messaging fees once the fee switch activates (the next vote is in June 2026). Following the Stargate acquisition in August, revenue is directed to ZRO buybacks: 50% during the initial six-month revenue-share period with former veSTG holders, and 100% thereafter. For a comprehensive overview of LayerZero's 2025 milestones, see '25 Stats Explaining How LayerZero Accelerated Crypto in 2025' on the official LayerZero blog."

2) Transfer volume

Transfer volume measures the total USD value of assets transferred through LayerZero's cross-chain messaging infrastructure. Q4 transfer volume totaled $52.31b, an all-time quarterly high, up from $31.97b in Q3 (+63.64% QoQ) and $5.98b in Q4 2024 (+774.70% YoY), bringing the 2025 cumulative total to $118.55b. Transfer volume has risen in every quarter over the past year, accelerating from single-digit billions in late 2024 to over $50b in Q4 2025. The quarter included multiple days exceeding $1b in daily volume, reflecting both organic growth in cross-chain activity and several large-scale transfer events.

LayerZero v2 accounted for 98.99% of Q4 transfer volume, followed by Stargate at 0.80% and v1 at 0.21%. The product distribution was largely stable quarter-over-quarter, with v2's share rising marginally from 98.90% in Q3. v1 continued its structural decline, falling from 0.28% to 0.21%.

👥 LayerZero team commentary

"Q4's all-time quarterly high reflects the maturation of the OFT standard as the dominant mechanism for cross-chain value movement. April 2025 marked the month OFT volume surpassed total bridge volume for the first time. LayerZero is no longer primarily a bridging solution – with the OFT Standard it is an asset issuance and movement solution, and that shift changes the composition of future volume in ways that favor continued growth over legacy bridge cannibalization. In essence, every asset issued with OFT is itself a bridge that can be moved across any chain for just the price of gas. 

This has flywheel potential: more assets using OFT beget more volume for the protocol. Every new OFT deployment brings more assets. Every new chain integration brings more issuers. Every new issuer brings more users. When Plasma launched with LayerZero as its foundational interoperability layer, it hit $10b in deposits in 19 days. When Flow integrated, daily transactions jumped 602%. The cumulative volume trajectory has accelerated significantly: the first $50b in cumulative volume took approximately 799 days to reach, while the most recent $50b was achieved in roughly 71 days.

The geographic distribution of volume is expanding beyond EVM. Sui integration drove immediate TVL expansion for Bitcoin-based assets. TON brought USDT0 to Telegram's user base. Aptos and Starknet connect Move and StarkVM architectures to the same rails. Each non-EVM integration expands the total addressable network in a way a new EVM chain cannot, because it connects entirely separate user bases and liquidity pools with no prior path to interoperate. 71% of stablecoins that can move cross-chain can move on LayerZero. Ondo Finance launched 105 tokenized U.S. stocks and ETFs using the OFT standard, USDT0 deployed XAUT0 (tokenized gold) across Solana and Ethereum, and the state of Wyoming issued its stablecoin on seven chains via LayerZero.

Volume is the right leading indicator for this project. It determines fee revenue when the switch activates, ZRO buybacks through Stargate, and network defensibility against competitors. To illustrate the scale and efficiency of these rails, a single $550m USDT0 transfer from Ethereum to Plasma settled in 206 seconds for $1.44 in fees."

3) Fees

Fees measure the total USD value of fees paid by users for cross-chain messages sent through LayerZero. These fees are paid to DVNs (Decentralized Verifier Networks) and Executors who verify and deliver messages, not to LayerZero itself.

Q4 fees totaled $1.04m, down from $2.21m in Q3 (-53.16% QoQ) and $2.18m in Q4 2024 (-52.54% YoY), bringing the 2025 cumulative total to $6.96m. The decline from Q3 was driven in part by the normalization of elevated fee activity in late September, which included several days with fees exceeding $50k. Q4 daily fee generation was more consistent but at a lower average level.

LayerZero v2 generated 55.13% of Q4 fees, followed by Stargate at 44.40% and v1 at 0.47%. Stargate's share grew from 42.08% in Q3 to 44.40%, while v2's share declined from 57.69% to 55.13%. Notably, Stargate contributed 44.40% of fees despite accounting for only 0.80% of transfer volume, reflecting a significantly higher fee rate per dollar transferred compared to v2 messaging.

👥 LayerZero team commentary

"Messaging fees paid to DVNs and Executors are not LayerZero's revenue.

The Q3-to-Q4 fee decline reflects normalization after high-fee activity in late September. Meanwhile, Stargate is now fully reintegrated, with swap fees directed to ZRO buybacks. Following the August acquisition, Stargate revenue is allocated to ZRO buybacks: 50% during the initial six-month revenue-share period with former veSTG holders, with 100% allocation scheduled thereafter, representing approximately $10.4m in annualized buyback volume at current run rates. The LayerZero Foundation's public buyback tracker shows approximately $1.30m in ZRO purchased during Q4 2025 across October, November, and December.

The messaging fee switch is a separate catalyst. Once it activates, every LayerZero message carries a fee to ZRO. The project is already processing over $50b per quarter. The December referendum failed. The next vote is mid-2026."

4) Monthly active users

Monthly active users (MAU) measures the number of unique wallet addresses that have interacted with LayerZero over a rolling 30-day period. Q4 MAU averaged 198.19k, down from 206.76k in Q3 (-4.14% QoQ) and 324.39k in Q4 2024 (-38.90% YoY). MAU has declined in every quarter over the past year from a peak of 324.39k in Q4 2024, though the rate of decline slowed in Q4 2025.

BNB Chain accounted for 23.57% of Q4 MAU, followed by Base at 21.21%, Arbitrum One at 15.59%, Ethereum at 12.97%, OP Mainnet at 6.77%, Linea at 5.24%, Plasma at 3.41%, Celo at 2.96%, Polygon at 1.84%, Unichain at 1.51%, and other chains at 4.93%. BNB Chain's share surged from 9.54% in Q3 to 23.57%, making it the largest chain by MAU share. Base declined from 25.33% to 21.21%, Arbitrum One from 20.55% to 15.59%, and OP Mainnet from 13.55% to 6.77%. Ethereum grew from 9.72% to 12.97%.

👥 LayerZero team commentary

"The late 2024 peak of 324k coincided directly with the ZRO token distribution and the wallet activity that follows any major event like that. Normalization is expected. The rate of decline has slowed to 4% quarter-over-quarter.

More important than wallet counts: the composition of who is using LayerZero is transforming. A year ago, retail DeFi users dominated. Today, the users of institutional asset issuers, PayPal, Ethena, Ondo, Fireblocks, the state of Wyoming, make up an increasing share of volume. These actors transact infrequently but at enormous scale. They do not show up proportionally in wallet counts. As stated above, a single $550m USDT0 transfer from Ethereum to Plasma cost $1.44 and settled in 206 seconds. That is one wallet. It does not move the MAU number, but does show that the type of user is changing.

The right metrics for a project at this stage of maturity are active OFT issuers, assets secured, and live chain endpoints. All three are at all-time highs. OFT deployments grew 173% in 2025, reaching 684 total assets. Total assets secured by the OFT standard equates to $87b across 700+ tokens. 160+ blockchains are connected. LayerZero is evolving from a retail interoperability layer to institutional financial infrastructure."

5) Fully diluted market cap

Fully diluted market cap (FDV) measures the total USD value of all ZRO tokens at the current market price, including tokens not yet in circulation. Q4 FDV averaged $1.57b, down from $2.00b in Q3 (-21.61% QoQ) and $4.59b in Q4 2024 (-65.81% YoY). FDV has declined in each of the past five quarters from its peak of $4.59b in Q4 2024, coinciding with a broader market contraction.

👥 LayerZero team commentary

"Most FDV analysis on LayerZero starts from the wrong baseline. Public dashboards do not account for the fact that institutional purchases, early investor buyouts, and ZRO buybacks now total 19.77% of total token supply, with the majority representing buyouts of upcoming unlocks. Standard unlock schedules overstate dilution pressure by almost 2x. The supply picture is materially better than the charts suggest. See more here. 

Furthermore, in November, LayerZero Labs executed a $10m discretionary buyback from the open market, supplementing the ongoing monthly buybacks funded by Stargate revenue.

As part of the Zero announcement on February 10, Tether, Citadel Securities, and ARK Invest announced new investments into LayerZero Labs and ZRO. Citadel Securities, Google Cloud, ICE, Tether, and DTCC are Day Zero partners on Zero.

The fee switch adds another catalyst. The December referendum failed quorum, with 3.71% participation against a 40.59% threshold. The next vote is mid-2026. If and when it passes, every LayerZero message carries a fee to ZRO. The project is already processing over $50b per quarter.

While the market will have its ups and downs, we're excited about building the future."

6) Definitions

Metrics:

  • Transfer volume: measures the total USD value of assets transferred through LayerZero's cross-chain messaging infrastructure.

  • Fees: measures the total USD value of fees paid by users for cross-chain messages sent through LayerZero. Fees are paid to DVNs (Decentralized Verifier Networks) and Executors, not retained by LayerZero).

  • Monthly active users: measures the number of unique wallet addresses that have interacted with LayerZero over a rolling 30-day period.

  • Fully diluted market cap: measures the total USD value of all ZRO tokens at the current market price, including tokens not yet in circulation.

Products:

  • LayerZero v1: the original version of LayerZero's cross-chain messaging protocol, which uses Ultra Light Nodes (ULNs) and a set of oracles and relayers to verify and deliver messages between blockchains.

  • LayerZero v2: the current version of the messaging protocol, which introduces modular security through configurable DVNs (Decentralized Verifier Networks) and Executors, allowing applications to customize their verification setup.

  • Stargate: a cross-chain bridge and liquidity protocol originally developed by LayerZero Labs in 2022 and reacquired by the LayerZero Foundation in August 2025. Stargate enables native asset transfers across blockchains through unified liquidity pools.

7) About this report

This report is published quarterly and produced leveraging Token Terminal's end-to-end onchain data infrastructure. All metrics are sourced directly from blockchain data. Charts and datasets referenced in this report can be viewed on the corresponding LayerZero Q4 2025 Report dashboard on Token Terminal.