ZKsync has moved past the “promising project” stage. Institutional adoption is already happening in production, not just on paper. What stands out most to me is Eugene Ludwig ; the 27th Comptroller of the Currency of the United States ; now building Cari Network on ZKsync’s Prividium. This isn’t a lightweight advisory role. As former head of the agency that regulates all national banks, he brings deep regulatory credibility and is working directly with five major U.S. regional banks (Huntington Bancshares, First Horizon, M&T Bank, KeyCorp, and Old National Bancorp). Together they hold over $600 billion in deposits. They’re using ZKsync Prividium to issue tokenized bank deposits that remain full liabilities of the issuing banks, stay inside the regulated banking perimeter (including FDIC where applicable), and enable 24/7 programmable settlement. When a former top U.S. banking regulator chooses this stack for real banking infrastructure, it carries weight. These aren’t crypto-native players chasing yield ; they’re traditional institutions that need reliability, compliance, and scalability. On the network side, I see the compounding effect clearly. Every new bank or institution that joins doesn’t just add its own activity ; it creates new direct, trusted connections with everyone already on the same settlement layer. That’s how real financial networks grow. Think SWIFT or Visa in their early days: the more participants, the more valuable the whole system becomes for everyone inside it. ZKsync’s Gateway settlement layer, connecting multiple ZKsync chains and Prividium zones back to Ethereum L1, is designed exactly for this kind of institutional mesh. As for $ZK: it is the only native asset of the entire ZKsync network and serves as its governance token. Holders decide on protocol upgrades, fee structures, and key economic parameters. It also functions as the native gas token for ZKsync Gateway ; the shared proof aggregation and settlement layer that bundles transactions from across the ecosystem before finalizing on Ethereum. To me, the picture is straightforward: serious institutions with real capital and regulatory experience are choosing to build on ZKsync today. The connections between them are growing, and $ZK is the only native asset that governs and powers the core infrastructure they’re using. That combination feels different from most other chains right now. @zksync