LayerZero Labs partnered with Google Cloud to boost the security of its cross-chain ecosystem. Vancouver-based startup, valued at $3 billion after a $120 million funding round led by a16z crypto, has been developing blockchain messaging protocol that allows decentralized applications build across multiple blockchains. Through the agreement, Google Cloud has become LayerZero's default oracle for verifying messages sent between blockchains on the startup's network, contributing to web3 interoperability.
"Google Cloud is the perfect partner to act as the default verifier securing messaging, as they have been a leader in security for multiple decades and now bring that same quality to the core of the LayerZero protocol," said Bryan Pellegrino, CEO of LayerZero Labs, in a press release. He added that LayerZero was designed from the start "to provide ultimate optionality for a truly decentralized architecture." The network has been growing exponentially, and currently, it handles over 95% of all cross-chain messaging.
What's the use of an oracle, anyway? Typically, blockchains work independently of one another and don't share data. With new networks and databases cropping up like mushrooms, there's a growing need to create links between them to enable simultaneous use of blockchains. Consequently, products and services facilitating the seamless data transmission between blockchains, such as LayerZero's protocol, are in high demand.
Even though particular blockchains are "trustless," i.e., they prevent data doctoring by design, they can't preclude altering or falsifying information transmitted between networks. That's exactly where protocols like LayerZero come in, with external verifiers confirming the accuracy of information exchanged across chains. Developers using the protocol have leveraged services like Chainlink or Polyhedra. With the LayerZero partnership, Google Cloud has joined the roster of blockchain oracles, enhancing the reliability of inter-blockchain communication.
The Big G has made a bet on web3 already in May 2022, setting up an engineering team dedicated to building decentralized services, including those related to the management of blockchain nodes and exploring blockchain data in third-party applications. A few months later, the company unveiled its Blockchain Node Engine service for accessing and using blockchains on its servers. At the beginning of August, Google Cloud started running a validator on the Celo network.
