On 8 September 2026 at 13:00 UTC, ZRO, the token of the LayerZero interoperability protocol, traded at about $1.13 on CoinGecko's hourly data. That is about 11% above the price a week earlier and about 34% above 9 August. It was still about 85% below its all-time high of $7.47, set on 6 December 2024. Later update: by 25 October 2026 (08:21 UTC) CoinGecko showed ZRO at $1.71, about 52% above the 8 September level.
The week in numbers
All prices come from CoinGecko. Hourly figures are taken at 13:00 UTC unless a different time is given.
| Measure | Value | Date / time (UTC) |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $1.127 | 8 Sep 2026, 13:00 |
| Price one week earlier | $1.011 | 1 Sep 2026, 13:00 |
| Price one month earlier | $0.841 | 9 Aug 2026, 13:00 |
| Seven-day low | $0.9939 | 1 Sep 2026, 23:00 |
| Seven-day high | $1.176 | 7 Sep 2026, 12:00 |
| Market cap (daily snapshot) | $401.3M | 8 Sep 2026, 00:00 |
| 24h trading volume, all venues (daily snapshot) | $47.3M | 8 Sep 2026, 00:00 |
| All-time high | $7.47 | 6 Dec 2024 |
The week's low and high are about 18% apart. After touching $1.176 on 7 September, the price eased to about $1.13 by midday on 8 September. A Spanish-language market report dated 2 September described ZRO dipping below $1.00 at the start of the month. CoinGecko's low of $0.9939 late on 1 September matches that account.
To get back to $7.47 from $1.13, ZRO would need to rise about 6.6 times. This is the size of the drawdown, not a forecast.
Supply: what is unlocked and what is still locked
LayerZero's own post on the token ("The ZRO Token") gives the supply picture as follows:
- Total supply: 1 billion ZRO, of which 514M is unlocked. The other 486M vests to the LayerZero Foundation, strategic partners and core contributors.
- Foundation: 383M originally (38.3%). 250M unlocked at launch. The remaining 183M is re-locked until Zero's mainnet launch. That 183M includes 50M bought back from strategic partners in September 2025.
- Strategic partners: 312M (31.2%). Their gross monthly unlock fell from 15M to 12.7M ZRO after the 50M buyback.
- Core contributors: these unlock on "a separate, slower schedule based on individual joining terms". The post gives no exact dates.
- Investor selling: as of 31 May 2026, 134.7M ZRO had unlocked to investors since launch, and 85.9M of it (63.8%) was still held. Open-market sales averaged 4.9M ZRO a month, about 0.5% of supply.
On 25 October 2026 CoinGecko listed circulating supply at about 400M ZRO, against a 1 billion maximum. Monthly unlocks add new supply on a steady schedule, so they are worth weighing alongside the price.
How much ZRO do partner unlocks add?
Enter a monthly unlock to strategic partners and a number of months to see the gross unlocked amount as a share of ZRO's 1 billion total supply.
| Gross monthly unlock to strategic partners | Number of months | Gross partner unlocks as a share of 1 billion total supply |
|---|---|---|
| 12.7 million ZRO | 6 months | 7.62 % |
| 12.7 million ZRO | 1 months | 1.27 % |
| 15 million ZRO | 6 months | 9 % |
- The unlock rate and the number of months are your inputs; 12.7M and 15M ZRO a month are the gross figures LayerZero's own blog gives for strategic partners after and before the buyback.
- The result is gross unlocked supply, not tokens sold: LayerZero says 63.8% of the ZRO unlocked to investors by 31 May 2026 was still held.
This covers only the strategic-partner unlocks. It leaves out core contributors, whose schedule has no published dates, and the Foundation's 183M re-locked ZRO, which is tied to Zero's mainnet launch. It cannot show whether unlocked tokens will be sold or how the price would react.
What sits behind the token
Zero, LayerZero's own chain
On 10 February 2026 LayerZero announced Zero, which it describes as "the first multi-core world computer". Zero is a blockchain that runs several "Atomicity Zones" in parallel. Its validators check zero-knowledge proofs instead of re-executing every transaction. The announcement sets a target of "2 million transactions per second (TPS) per Zone". This is a design target, not a measured result. The announcement gives no launch date. The Defiant reported that ZRO rose 40% after the unveiling and that Zero was "built in collaboration with Citadel, ICE, and Google Cloud".
Token utility and buybacks
According to LayerZero, once Zero launches ZRO will be used to stake and secure the network, pay gas and vote on governance. Network fees would flow back to the token through buybacks and burns.
Two buyback mechanisms already exist or have been proposed:
- Stargate revenue: since April 2026, 100% of revenue from Stargate, a bridge built on LayerZero, goes to buying ZRO. Until March 2026 that revenue was split 50/50 with veSTG holders.
- Protocol fee switch: if governance turns it on, it would fund ZRO buybacks and burns. LayerZero lists three referendums on it, each with more than 96% approval. Turnout was 10.96% (December 2024), 13.01% (June 2025) and 3.71% (December 2025). The post describes the switch as something that would apply "if activated", so it does not say the switch is on.
What to watch
- Zero's mainnet date. The Foundation's 183M re-locked ZRO is tied to that launch.
- Monthly unlocks to strategic partners, about 12.7M ZRO gross per month.
- The fee switch, whether a future vote reaches enough turnout to activate it.
Limitations: the price figures come from one data provider (CoinGecko), and the supply and buyback figures come from LayerZero's own blog, not an independent audit.
Crypto assets are volatile and you can lose your capital. Nothing here is investment advice.
