Introducing Zonda Markets and ElZorro
Research-driven financial engineering, built and tested onchain.
Today, we're introducing Zonda Markets, a research lab and development studio focused on exploring the frontier of onchain financial markets.
Zonda Markets is a collaboration between Aligned and Pol Finance, combining expertise in cryptography, Ethereum infrastructure, quantitative finance, and mathematical modeling.
Our goal is to bridge financial theory and engineering to research, design, and experiment with new approaches to onchain markets.
PropAMMs are rapidly emerging as an important part of Ethereum's trading infrastructure. In just a few months, they have grown to account for an estimated 5–10% of Ethereum mainnet swap volume. Between September 14 and 20, 2026, two leading PropAMMs, Fermi and Metric, processed over $458 million in combined trading volume, according to data from pamm.wtf referenced in Ethereum PropAMMs: Today and Tomorrow. These early results highlight the growing adoption of actively managed onchain liquidity and the opportunities to further develop this new market structure.
We believe Ethereum's evolving infrastructure is opening up new possibilities for financial applications. By combining a deep understanding of financial models with the ability to build and deploy production systems, we aim to explore those possibilities and contribute to the next generation of onchain markets.
ElZorro: Our First Experiment
Our collaboration began with the development of ElZorro, a proprietary automated market maker (PropAMM) deployed on Ethereum mainnet.
ElZorro is the first PropAMM launched using LambdaClass's open-source PropAMM Factory.
The project was developed with two main objectives: to experiment with different financial and market-making models in a live environment, and to help test, validate, and improve the infrastructure provided by the PropAMM Factory.
PropAMMs represent an interesting evolution in onchain market making. Rather than relying exclusively on predefined pricing curves, they allow market makers to provide actively managed quotes that can adapt to changing market conditions.
This creates opportunities to explore more sophisticated pricing strategies, liquidity management, and market-making models while leveraging Ethereum as a settlement layer.
For a deeper introduction to PropAMMs and their underlying infrastructure, we recommend reading LambdaClass's article on PropAMMs.
ElZorro in Numbers
Since its launch, ElZorro has been providing liquidity and quoting across three markets on Ethereum mainnet:
- ETH/USDC
- ETH/USDT
- USDC/USDT
Our initial deployment has already processed:
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Total swaps | 12,000+ |
| Trading volume | $12.78M |
| Trading pairs | ETH/USDC, ETH/USDT, USDC/USDT |
Data from the ElZorro dashboard. Snapshot figures; update before publication.
These initial results provide a foundation for evaluating our market-making models under real market conditions, understanding execution behavior, and identifying opportunities to improve the underlying infrastructure.
ElZorro's activity can be explored through pamm.wtf, where PropAMM trading activity and market performance can be monitored.
While trading activity is one way to measure the experiment's progress, our primary focus remains on the research and engineering insights gained from operating these systems on Ethereum.
Building on Ethereum's Evolution
ElZorro is currently a research experiment designed to advance our understanding of PropAMMs and contribute to their development.
As Ethereum continues to evolve, ElZorro will continue adopting and experimenting with the latest features and infrastructure developments across the Ethereum ecosystem.
We want to explore how emerging capabilities can enable more sophisticated market-making strategies, improve capital efficiency, optimize execution, and expand what is possible with PropAMMs.
Our work with ElZorro will continue to focus on improving existing infrastructure, testing new financial models, and translating research into practical implementations.
Beyond PropAMMs, Zonda Markets will continue expanding its research into other areas of onchain finance, exploring new market mechanisms and building solutions that take advantage of Ethereum's evolving capabilities.
What's Next for Zonda Markets
ElZorro is our first experiment and the starting point for a broader research initiative.
Through Zonda Markets, Aligned and Pol Finance aim to bring together rigorous financial research, mathematical modeling, and deep Ethereum engineering expertise to develop new approaches to onchain financial markets.
We believe the most meaningful advances in onchain finance will emerge from combining strong theoretical foundations with real-world experimentation.
Our approach is simple: research, build, deploy, learn, and iterate.
This is the beginning of Zonda Markets, and we look forward to sharing our research, experiments, and developments as we continue building.
Acknowledgments
We thank LambdaClass for including us in the early experimentation with the PropAMM Factory, and Gattaca for their continued work pushing the frontier of PropAMMs on Ethereum.