
$GRVT Bryan Pellegrino is the co-founder and CEO of LayerZero Labs, the company behind the LayerZero cross-chain messaging protocol and the $ZRO token. Before crypto, he spent about eight years as a professional poker player and won more than $500,000 at the World Series of Poker.
He co-founded LayerZero in 2021 with Ryan Zarick and Caleb Banister. The company is now building Zero, a Layer 1 blockchain designed for institutional finance.
Who Is Bryan Pellegrino?
Pellegrino grew up in Danbury, New Hampshire, a town of fewer than 1,000 people. He met his future co-founders while working in a computer network research lab at the University of New Hampshire.
He is based in Vancouver, Canada, where LayerZero has its headquarters. He told The Logic he moved there so his children could attend school there and to be near family.
How Did Poker Shape His Career?
Poker came first and lasted almost a decade.
From Teen Player To World Series Results
Pellegrino started playing online poker at 15, on an account his father opened for him, according to Sequoia Capital. At his peak, he played about 70 hours a week. Highlights of his poker career include:
More than $500,000 in World Series of Poker prize money
A second-place finish in a 2012 World Series event
Travel to about 80 countries while playing
His most profitable year was 2014, but he said the game felt unfulfilling. “I was just trying to be the best,” he told Sequoia.
From Poker To AI
His poker work led to research. In 2020, Pellegrino, Zarick, Banister, and Noam Brown of Facebook AI published a paper on Supremus, a poker AI that beat the previous top poker AI. Earlier, in 2016, he sold a machine learning tool that predicts pitch-by-pitch outcomes to several Major League Baseball teams.
How Did He Get Into Crypto?
Pellegrino first bought and mined Bitcoin with friends in 2013, a time when many poker players used it. He returned in late 2016 to build on Ethereum and later co-founded OpenToken, a platform for launching tokens.
The idea for LayerZero came from a game. In fall 2020, his team built a gladiator $NFT game on Binance Smart Chain. Moving an $NFT from that chain to Ethereum showed how risky existing bridges were.
What Is LayerZero?
LayerZero is an interoperability protocol. It lets separate blockchains send messages and assets to each other. Its whitepaper, “LayerZero: Trustless Omnichain Interoperability Protocol,” was released in May 2021.
Funding And Growth
Investors backed the company early:
2022: A $135 million Series A+ round co-led by Sequoia partners
2023: A $120 million round at a $3 billion valuation, with investors including Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and Sequoia
After FTX: When FTX collapsed in November 2022, LayerZero bought back the exchange’s stake
Stargate, an app built on LayerZero, launched in March 2022 and moved more than $250 million in its first 10 days.
Zero: A Blockchain For Wall Street
On February 10, 2026, LayerZero announced Zero, a Layer 1 blockchain built for institutional markets. It uses zero-knowledge proofs, which let parties verify information without revealing it, to keep sensitive client data off the public ledger. Partners include Intercontinental Exchange, the parent of the NYSE, and the DTCC. Citadel Securities bought $ZRO as a strategic investment, and $ARK Invest and Tether also backed the project.
Pellegrino framed Zero around a shift to 24/7 global trading. “How do you actually build those markets for the future?” he asked, Fortune reported. Fortune said the launch was planned for September 2026, and LayerZero’s roadmap lists the mainnet for “Fall 2026.”
What Has LayerZero Done Recently?
Recent updates include:
September 8: LayerZero completed SOC 2 Type 1 and Type 2 audits of its cross-chain infrastructure.
October 8: Blockaid launched Bridge Sentinel, a screening service for cross-chain messages built for LayerZero.
October 16: LayerZero unveiled Aerie, a research system developed with a16z crypto that combines 32,768 Falcon signatures in 0.65 seconds on consumer hardware.
Where Does The $ZRO Price Stand?
$ZRO traded at $1.87 on October 20, down 10.6% over seven days, per CoinGecko. It has a market cap of about $747 million, ranking 90th, with about 400 million tokens in circulation out of a 1 billion maximum. It sits about 75% below its $7.47 all-time high.
Monthly token unlocks of about 32.6 million $ZRO are adding supply. CoinMarketCap tied a 10.69% drop on October 17 to an unlock hitting thin liquidity.
Conclusion
Bryan Pellegrino moved from professional poker to AI research and then to blockchain infrastructure. LayerZero, which he co-founded in 2021, lets blockchains exchange messages and assets, and it now powers apps such as Stargate. The company has raised more than $255 million in venture funding. It is building Zero, a Layer 1 for institutional markets backed by Citadel Securities, $ARK, and Tether.

$GRVT The crypto market will welcome tokens worth more than $793.6 million in the fourth week of October 2026. Major projects, including LayerZero (ZRO), Plasma (XPL), and Humanity (H), will release significant new token supplies.
These unlocks could introduce market volatility and influence short-term price movements. So, here’s a breakdown of what to watch.
1. LayerZero (ZRO)
Unlock Date: October 20
Number of Tokens to be Unlocked: 23.28 million ZRO
Released Supply: 607.45 million ZRO
Total Supply: 1 billion ZRO
LayerZero is an interoperability protocol that connects different blockchains. Its primary goal is to facilitate seamless cross-chain communication. Thus, it enables decentralized applications (dApps) to interact across multiple blockchains without relying on traditional bridging models.
The team will unlock 23.28 million tokens on October 20, representing 3.83% of the released supply. Moreover, the supply is worth approximately $43.54 million.
ZRO Crypto Token Unlock in October. Source: Tokenomist
LayerZero will award 10.99 million altcoins to strategic partners. Core contributors will get 10.63 million ZRO. Lastly, 1.67 million ZRO are for tokens repurchased by the team.
2. Plasma (XPL)
Unlock Date: October 25
Number of Tokens to be Unlocked: 227.78 million XPL
Released Supply: 4.53 billion XPL
Total Supply: 10 billion XPL
Plasma is a Layer 1 blockchain platform built to enhance the efficiency and scalability of stablecoin transactions. It enables zero-fee USDT transfers, supports custom gas tokens, enables confidential payments, and delivers the throughput required for global-scale adoption.
Plasma will release 227.78 million XPL on October 25. The stack is worth $17.50 million and accounts for 5.02% of the released supply.
XPL Crypto Token Unlock in October. Source: Tokenomist
The team will direct 88.89 million XPL to ecosystem and growth. In addition, investors and the team will each receive 69.44 million tokens.
3. Humanity (H)
Unlock Date: October 25
Number of Tokens to be Unlocked: 266.47 million H
Released Supply: 3.90 billion H
Total Supply: 10 billion H
Humanity (H) is a decentralized identity protocol that utilizes biometric palm recognition, zero-knowledge proofs, and blockchain to verify the authenticity of real human users without exposing their personal data. It features a native Proof of Humanity (PoH) consensus mechanism.
On October 25, the protocol will unlock 266.47 million tokens. The tokens are worth $15.30 million and account for 6.84% of the released supply.
H Crypto Token Unlock in October. Source: Tokenomist
The team will split the released supply six ways. Early contributors will take the largest share at 79.17 million H, while investors will receive 55.56 million altcoins.
Meanwhile, the ecosystem fund will claim 50 million H, and Humanity will direct 42.86 million tokens toward identity verification rewards.
The Human Institute Strategic Reserve will get 26.39 million H. Lastly, the foundation operations treasury will receive 12.50 million.
In addition to these, other prominent unlocks investors can look out for in the fourth week of October include SoSoValue (SOSO), Kaito (KAITO), Bedrock (BR), and more, which will contribute to the total market-wide releases.
Tokenomist has marked the LayerZero, Plasma, and Humanity unlocks as pending verification, so these figures remain projections.

$GRVT TL;DR
Token unlocks worth more than $793.6 million are scheduled for October’s fourth week, with LayerZero, Plasma and Humanity among the largest releases tracked by Tokenomist.
LayerZero will unlock 23.28 million ZRO on October 20, while Plasma and Humanity plan releases of 227.78 million XPL and 266.47 million H on October 25.
Unlocks increase supply but do not prove tokens will be sold, and Tokenomist notes amounts and timing can change.
Crypto markets face more than $793.6 million in scheduled token releases during the fourth week of October, with LayerZero, Plasma and Humanity among the largest cliff events. The Tokenomist dashboard tracks the releases alongside broader linear emissions, while its event pages caution that timing and amounts may change. The current dashboard separately shows $124.09 million in cliff unlocks over seven days, a narrower category than the broader weekly total. For investors studying tokenomics and vesting, the headline total represents scheduled supply becoming transferable, not evidence that $793.6 million of tokens will immediately be sold into the market.
LayerZero Leads as Plasma and Humanity Prepare October 25 Unlocks
LayerZero leads the highlighted cliff releases on October 20 with 23.28 million ZRO, valued at $43.54 million in the reference snapshot and equal to 3.83% of released supply. Tokenomist later displayed the upcoming value near $42.61 million as market prices changed, illustrating why dollar estimates can move before an unlock occurs. Market prices can alter release valuations. The event follows earlier LayerZero-led unlock cycles tracked across the market. ZRO is the largest named cliff event this week, but its dollar value remains sensitive to the token’s price before release.
Plasma and Humanity are scheduled for October 25. Plasma plans to release 227.78 million XPL, worth $17.50 million in the original snapshot and 5.02% of released supply; Tokenomist later showed $17.53 million. Of that amount, 88.89 million XPL goes to ecosystem and growth, while investors and the team each receive 69.44 million. Humanity plans to unlock 266.47 million H, valued at $15.30 million in the original snapshot and 6.84% of released supply; the later dashboard showed $15.11 million. Previous Humanity and Plasma unlocks provide context. Both events distribute tokens across multiple stakeholder groups rather than one recipient category.
Humanity’s allocation gives 79.17 million H to early contributors, 55.56 million to investors, 50 million to the ecosystem fund, 42.86 million to identity-verification rewards, 26.39 million to the Human Institute Strategic Reserve and 12.50 million to the foundation operations treasury. Other scheduled releases during the week include SoSoValue, Kaito, Bedrock and additional projects, contributing to the market-wide total. Earlier large token unlock waves show why traders monitor supply calendars, although unlocks alone do not establish selling pressure. The immediate market question is whether newly transferable supply is retained, deployed within ecosystems or moved toward secondary-market liquidity.