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Zignaly, the premiere platform for connecting users with top digital asset managers, has announced that its founders have made the strategic decision to extend the lock-up on their $ZIG tokens until January 2026, a year later than originally planned.

This decision underscores their unwavering commitment to ZIGChain, the Layer-1 blockchain designed to democratize wealth generation, making investment opportunities accessible to everyone.

“By extending the lock-up on our $ZIG tokens, we emphasize our commitment to the community and the mission of ZIGChain,”

said Bartolome R. Bordallo, Co-Founder and CEO of Zignaly.

“This decision is about fostering equal investment opportunities and ensuring long-term sustainability for all stakeholders. Together, we are building a more inclusive financial future that benefits everyone.”

ZIGChain, Zignaly’s Layer 1 blockchain, represents the next evolution in democratizing wealth-generation opportunities. By offering an infrastructure for developers to build decentralized wealth-generation protocols and fund managers to deploy advanced strategies, ZIGChain is disrupting the way institutions and retail investors can invest. The Blockchain’s $100M Ecosystem Fund, supported by DWFLabs and UDHC Finance, aims to drive further innovation within the WEB3 space.

The choice to maintain the lock-up also aligns with the company’s focus on creating equal financial opportunities for all participants within the ZIGChain ecosystem, ensuring that the project’s core values remain intact. It also significantly changes the company’s tokenomics, leading to lower supply in the market as founder tokens remain locked.

This extension excludes the founders’ donation of 100 million $ZIG tokens to the ZIGChain Foundation. Starting January 2025, these tokens will continue to vest over a 30-month period, following a linear release schedule. The vesting plan aims to empower the ZIGChain ecosy

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ZIGChain celebrated a major milestone today, flipping the switch on its mainnet beta and officially entering what the team calls “Genesis Day.” After weeks of rigorous testing—and plenty of late nights for developers—the blockchain is now live, ready to power everything from decentralized exchanges to real-world asset tokenization. If you’ve ever tried to navigate traditional finance or shoehorn it into a blockchain context, you know how messy it can get.

Abdul Rafay Gadit, ZIGChain’s co-founder, said, “Accessing reliable and transparent investment infrastructure has historically been difficult, not just for retail users, but even for experienced managers. With ZIGChain, we’re taking a meaningful step toward changing that by focusing deeply on real-world assets as the foundation for long-term, scalable wealth generation. We aim to equip developers with the tools they need to start building programmable protocols designed to align with applicable law  that bridge traditional assets with blockchain technology.”

From Vision to Reality Behind the scenes, there’s serious firepower: a $100 million ecosystem fund fueled by DWF Labs, UDHC Finance, and Disrupt.com, plus the pedigree of Zignaly—the social investment platform that already connects over 600,000 users with more than 150 fund managers. Those users, Gadit points out, helped shape ZIGChain’s core features, like native staking, cross-chain bridges, and an institutional-grade validator network.

Co-founder and CEO Bart Bordallo sums it up: “This mainnet beta launch represents a shift from vision to foundation. We’ve built a high-performance, interoperable architecture that can handle the complex requirements of DeFi, RWA tokenization, and automated investment protocols at scale. The infrastructure includes our validator network, cross-chain bridge capabilities, and native staking mechanisms – all designed for institutional-grade security and compliance. We’re excited to see developers leverage these technical foundations to build the next generation of financial applications.”

Over the next few weeks, you’ll see ZIGChain roll out its Hub for staking and validation, connect its bridges for seamless $ZIG migration, and fire up its full validator roster. Even before the dust has settled, a handful of eye-catching projects are gearing up to go live:

Oroswap, a DEX you can literally chat with—thanks to its AI-driven conversational interface.
Valdora Finance, offering liquid staking natively on ZIGChain, so you can earn rewards without locking your tokens away forever.
Permapod, a lending protocol that accepts tokenized real-world assets as collateral—think art, property, or even specialty equipment.
Nawa Finance, designed from the ground up to meet Shariah-compliance standards for users seeking ethical DeFi. These projects aren’t just shiny demos; they’re the first wave of builders betting their reputations on ZIGChain’s promise: a legal-ready, high-performance Layer 1 that plays nicely with existing regulations and institutional demands.

Back in April, at the ZIGChain Summit in Dubai, the team also unveiled Zamanat—the world’s first Shariah-compliant real-world asset tokenization platform—and launched a $25 million DeFAI Innovation Fund. That event highlighted the chain’s dual focus on ethical finance and on-chain programmability, setting the tone for an ecosystem that welcomes everyone, regardless of income, tech skills, or location.

Today’s launch isn’t the finish line, but it’s a big first lap. As more applications go live and the network fills with real assets, ZIGChain hopes to prove that decentralized wealth generation can be both powerful and inclusive. If you’re curious to see what comes next, keep an eye on their GitHub—and maybe clear your calendar for a few late-night coding sessions.

AUTHOR

Mushumir Butt is a seasoned crypto journalist with over three years of experience reporting on the world of blockchain and cryptocurrency. At Blockchain Reporter, he delivers insightful news, in‐depth project reviews, and precise price analysis and predictions. With a strong background in SEO and digital marketing, Mushumir excels at breaking down complex trends into clear, accessible content, ensuring readers stay ahead in the fast‐paced crypto space.