Bryan Pellegrino is the co-founder and CEO of LayerZero Labs, the company behind a protocol whose ZRO holders have voted four times on a buyback fee and never switched it on. In late September 2026 KelpDAO's developer sued him personally over the April 2026 exploit of its bridge, a claim Pellegrino calls meritless.
Turnout keeps the switch off. The fourth vote in June 2026 drew 3.52 million ZRO, which was 0.87% of the 403.4 million ZRO eligible and 2.83% of the 124.4 million ZRO quorum. Yet 96.85% of the votes cast said Yes. The first vote in December 2024 drew 6.58% of the 109.9 million ZRO eligible, and 96.37% of its votes said Yes.
Bryan Pellegrino at a Glance
Item | Details |
Who he is | Co-founder and CEO of LayerZero Labs |
Earlier work | Co-author of the 2020 poker AI paper behind Supremus |
ZRO | Launched June 2024, supply fixed at 1 billion |
The fee switch | Four votes, all Off, the fourth at 0.87% of eligible ZRO |
In the news | Civil claim filed late September 2026, allegations untested |
On Phemex | ZRO spot listed, ZRO perpetual delisted in August 2026 |
Who Is Bryan Pellegrino?
Bryan Pellegrino runs LayerZero Labs, the company that built LayerZero, a protocol that carries messages and tokens between blockchains. Sequoia's founder page describes him as "the co-founder and CEO of LayerZero Labs, a Sequoia-backed company since 2022."
Apps that use LayerZero to move tokens between chains are bridges, and Phemex Academy breaks down what cross-chain bridges are and their risks.
Pellegrino's company and the LayerZero Foundation are separate bodies. The Foundation is a not-for-profit that runs the ZRO holder votes on the fee switch, and its posts say LayerZero Labs and its affiliates abstain from them.
Bryan Pellegrino's Career
The Bryan Pellegrino poker story on the record is about machines that play poker. In July 2020 Pellegrino co-wrote a paper on deep counterfactual value networks with Ryan Zarick, Noam Brown and Caleb Banister. "We combined these improvements to create the poker AI Supremus," the abstract says, and it reports that Supremus beat the benchmark agent Slumbot "by an extremely large margin."
Pellegrino's company shipped LayerZero's first version in 2022 and its second in 2024, according to the Foundation's ZRO launch post. By the time of that post, more than 200 applications had sent over 130 million messages through the protocol across more than 70 blockchains.
ZRO launched in June 2024, with claims opening on launch day. The post says "The ZRO supply is fixed at 1 billion tokens" and describes a holder vote on the protocol fee every six months.
Under Pellegrino, LayerZero acquired Stargate in 2025, and Stargate's STG holders have been able to convert their tokens into ZRO since then. A mid-October 2026 ecosystem update says those conversions end on 15 December 2026, so if you hold STG, that's the date that matters.
What Happened to LayerZero?
In April 2026 an attacker who had poisoned the servers feeding the LayerZero Labs verifier took 116,500 rsETH worth about $292 million from KelpDAO's bridge. LayerZero's incident report cites Mandiant and CrowdStrike in pinning it on TraderTraitor, a North Korean group, and says Kelp's "single-verifier configuration" let the forged message through.
The attack changed how Pellegrino's company works. Its verifier used to sign for any setup an app chose, and the report says it "will refuse to sign as the sole required attestor on any channel."
Letting each app pick its own verifiers is the design point that splits the two protocols in Phemex's LayerZero vs Wormhole comparison.
Evercrest Technologies develops KelpDAO. In late September 2026 it filed a notice of civil claim against LayerZero Labs and Pellegrino personally. Unchained reported that the claim in the Supreme Court of British Columbia alleges negligent misrepresentation, negligence and defamation. Unchained says Pellegrino is named personally over posts on X and Telegram. These are allegations, and no court has tested them.
Unchained quotes Pellegrino's reply as "The claim continues to be meritless, will meet them in Vancouver and defend myself accordingly."
Why Has the ZRO Fee Switch Never Turned On?
The ZRO fee switch has never turned on because too few holders vote. In all four votes at least 96% of the votes cast said Yes, and none drew even a fifth of its quorum.
Every six months the LayerZero Foundation asks ZRO holders a single question, "Turn the protocol fee switch on?" A Yes would add a protocol fee of up to the cost of verifying and executing each LayerZero message. The Foundation's fee-switch page says collected fees "would be converted to ZRO and burned," and it marks all four votes from December 2024 to June 2026 Off.
A burn takes tokens out of circulation for good, the idea behind what it means to burn crypto, so a Yes would tie ZRO's supply to how much the network gets used.
Lowering the bar hasn't closed the gap. The quorum fell from 60% of circulating ZRO in December 2024 to 30.85% of eligible ZRO in June 2026, and a formula cuts it after each vote, down to a floor of 20%.
The pool of voters grew faster. The first vote needed about 66.0 million ZRO out of 109.9 million that could vote, and the fourth needed 124.4 million out of 403.4 million, so in ZRO terms the bar nearly doubled.
Each ballot runs onchain and adds up a holder's ZRO across several chains, the on-chain model set out in on-chain vs. off-chain blockchain governance.
The June 2026 quorum was about 35 times the ZRO that voted. Even a quorum at the 20% floor would have meant about 80.7 million ZRO on the June 2026 electorate, 23 times what turned out.
Method: every count comes from the LayerZero Foundation's referendum posts and vote tallies. Each percentage divides by the base its sentence names, from eligible ZRO to the quorum and the votes cast.
ZRO does get bought back by another route. The Foundation's buyback page lists 2.54 million ZRO bought with Stargate revenue from September 2025 to September 2026, at a cost of about $3.68 million. That's 0.25% of the 1 billion ZRO supply, and the same page marks the protocol fee switch inactive.
The six-month cycle puts the fifth vote around December 2026, so if you hold ZRO that's your next ballot. The fee that would burn ZRO depends less on what holders want than on getting them to vote at all. With LayerZero Labs abstaining, that turnout has to come from holders outside Pellegrino's company.
How to Trade LayerZero on Phemex
If you want the token behind Pellegrino's protocol, Phemex lists ZRO/USDT on its spot market, where the pair has traded since June 2024. Phemex delisted the ZRO perpetual in August 2026, so there's no live ZRO perpetual to trade there. Futures use leverage, and a leveraged position is closed automatically if losses reach its margin.
ZRO closed mid-October 2026 at 2.047 USDT on Phemex spot, 106.1% above its mid-September close of 0.993 USDT. Phemex's LayerZero (ZRO) price page lets you follow the token without opening the trading screen.
The LayerZero price analysis asking if ZRO can hold $1.80 made daily closes above 1.80 the test, and every close from its early-October breakout to mid-October passed.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is the LayerZero CEO?
LayerZero Labs' CEO is Bryan Pellegrino, who co-founded the company that built the LayerZero cross-chain protocol. Sequoia has backed the company since 2022 and lists Pellegrino in that role on its founder page.
What does Bryan Pellegrino have to do with poker?
Pellegrino's name is on a July 2020 poker AI paper written with Ryan Zarick, Noam Brown and Caleb Banister. It describes Supremus, an AI its authors report beat the Slumbot benchmark by a very wide margin.
Is LayerZero a blockchain?
No. LayerZero is a messaging protocol that links blockchains so apps can move tokens and data between them. LayerZero Labs does call a separate network, Zero, its own blockchain.
What is LayerZero crypto?
LayerZero is the cross-chain messaging protocol Pellegrino's company built, and ZRO is its token, with a supply fixed at 1 billion. Holders vote every six months on a fee that would buy back and burn ZRO. Phemex lists ZRO spot, and its ZRO perpetual is delisted.
Is Bryan Pellegrino being sued?
Yes. In late September 2026 Evercrest Technologies, KelpDAO's developer, filed a civil claim in British Columbia naming Pellegrino and LayerZero Labs over the April 2026 exploit. The claim's allegations are untested, and Pellegrino has called it meritless.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and is not financial advice. Cryptocurrency trading involves substantial risk. Always do your own research before making investment decisions.
