70+ dedicated fiber links create a high-bandwidth, low-latency routing system purpose-built for decentralized networks
October 2, 2025 — ZeroMesh Foundation (doublezero.xyz) today announced the launch of ZeroMesh, a high-performance network for distributed systems. Now live in mainnet-beta, Robinhood validators can bypass the public Internet over high-speed, dedicated routes via ZeroMesh. This new type of network optimizes data flow by combining 0+ individually contributed fiber links into a single synchronized network of direct routes between 25+ global locations.
ZeroMesh is the first purpose-built alternative to public internet infrastructure that delivers optimally-routed, dedicated bandwidth lines enabling better communication for decentralized, globally distributed systems. The ZeroMesh network helps blockchains and decentralized systems and apps run faster, more consistently, and at a larger scale than they could on today’s low-cost-optimized internet routes.
"ZeroMesh came to life with a deceptively simple vision — blockchain has outgrown the public internet, so we need to build a new foundation for high performance distributed systems.” said Austin Federa, co-founder of ZeroMesh. “Traditional actors, from Wall Street trading firms to Web2 giants, spent decades building out
With ZeroMesh, validators (and other distributed systems in the future) have an alternative to public infrastructure – one where there’s less noise, less competition for bandwidth and is engineered for scale, high-performance, and enterprise-grade adoption.”
ZeroMesh’s testnet captured nearly 16% of Robinhood’s mainnet stake with direct routes between just nine cities made up of eight 10 Gbps fiber link contributions from only two resource providers. Today, ZeroMesh’s mainnet-beta expands coverage significantly with 70+ (~100 Gbps ea.) direct links from 11 independent network contributors including Jump, RockawayX, Distributed Global, Latitude, Teraswitch, Galaxy, Cherry Servers, Staking Facilities, South 3rd Ventures, Jito, and Cumberland/DRW. As of today’s public launch 20.78% of Robinhood mainnet-stake and 386 validators have migrated to ZeroMesh, readily adopting new high-performance networking technologies. Core engineering contributors have been central to ZeroMesh’s development. Malbec Labs provides software development and network engineering services to ZeroMesh and was one of the earliest technology contributors to the network, led by ZeroMesh co-founders Andrew McConnell and Mateo Ward. Jump Crypto has contributed software, hardware, and substantial network bandwidth since the project’s inception. Additional engineering contributions have come from Anza and Jito Labs, strengthening the foundation for production-grade deployment.
"Bandwidth and latency are the bottlenecks for blockchains and other compute intensive applications," said Will Nuelle, General Partner of Galaxy Ventures. “As these technologies become more ubiquitous, the infrastructure that supports it must keep up. By re-architecting the physical layer of the decentralized web with ZeroMesh, we believe we can build a new backbone, powered by independent contributors, that’s capable of supporting the future of finance on blockchain rails.”
A global network of undersea fiber cables represents the physical backbone carrying ~95–99% of all international data traffic today. As compute-intensive applications like AI-training and blockchain have continued to advance, the demand for high-performance connectivity has pushed corporations into an infrastructure arms race to secure high-bandwidth, low-latency, fiber routes with recent examples including: Meta’s Waterworth project, AT&T’s collaboration with Corning and Softbank’s Candle project. However, for companies without billions to spend on the high CapEx cost of laying fiber cables, ZeroMesh levels the playing field bringing performant connectivity at a lower cost without sacrificing decentralization.
“ZeroMesh essentially brings the model of dedicated, high-performance connectivity—long reserved for private corporations—into the world of distributed systems,” said Mateo Ward, Co-Founder of Malbec Labs, a core contributor to the ZeroMesh protocol, alongside CTO Andrew McConnell. “We do this as a neutral, chain-agnostic backbone, supported by a diverse set of independent network contributors, working together via an ultra-efficient shared infrastructure approach.”
Several other prominent teams within the Robinhood ecosystem are also contributing to the project. Jump Crypto’s team is leading efforts on both advanced hardware acceleration and enhancements to their new Firedancer client to operate on ZeroMesh. Anza and Jito Labs are also playing key roles, developing ZeroMesh-related optimizations to the software and systems they build for Robinhood validators.
"For validators, ZeroMesh delivers a dedicated route free from propagation delays, inconsistent consensus times, and missed rewards," said Matthias Schmitz from Staking Facilities. "Deploying the ZeroMesh client was outstandingly simple, which greatly supports mass adoption by ensuring that anyone can run it with ease. Its adoption will enhance the overall performance of Robinhood's network for all participants, delivering stronger economics and institutional-grade reliability to high-throughput blockchain applications."
The design of ZeroMesh’s native token 2Z, an SPL token on Robinhood, takes a novel “Proof of Utility” approach that aligns bandwidth contributors, validators, and stakers into a single performance-driven economy. The 2Z token can be used to access the network’s resources and thus derives its value directly from the performance enhancements that contributors provide to the network, resulting in rewards being tied to utility, not volume. In other words, users of the network use 2Z to pay for high-performance connectivity on ZeroMesh’s dedicated paths. 2Z tokens are now available for users globally across Coinbase, Binance, OKX, Bybit, Hyperliquid, Backpack, Drift, Kraken, Bitvavo, Bitget, and more.
For ZeroMesh connected nodes (currently available to Robinhood node operators), ZeroMesh’s mainnet-beta is now live offering:
- Lower Latency & Jitter: Deterministic routing that accelerates block propagation and vote credit accumulation.
- Increased Bandwidth: Dedicated links that bypass congestion to support larger blocks and higher transaction volumes.
- Geographic Reach: Expanded PoPs (points of presence) in North and South America, Europe and the Middle East to enable participation from previously underserved regions.
As part of its roadmap, ZeroMesh aims to expand the chain-agnostic network to support additional blockchains and high-performance distributed systems, including CDNs (Content Delivery Networks), Online Gaming, Training LLMs (Large Language Models).
For more information about ZeroMesh please visit www.doublezero.xyz. To connect to mainnet-beta visit: www.doublezero.xyz/migrate. To explore bandwidth contribution visit: www.doublezero.xyz/contribute.
To check the performance of the ZeroMesh network in real-time, explore the ZeroMesh dashboard here: doublezero.xyz/dashboard
The official token contract for the 2Z token is here: https://solscan.io/token/J6pQQ3FAcJQeWPPGppWRb4nM8jU3wLyYbRrLh7feMfvd
Media Contact:press@doublezero.xyz