what's Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol (CCTP)?
Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol (CCTP) is an open standard developed by Circle for enabling secure, native transfers of USDC (and potentially other stablecoins) between supported blockchains. It operates via a burn-and-mint mechanism: USDC is burned on the source chain and equivalently minted on the destination chain, ensuring 1:1 parity without relying on liquidity pools, bridges, or third-party custodians. This unifies liquidity across ecosystems, reduces fragmentation, and simplifies user experiences in DeFi, payments, and dApps. CCTP supports major blockchains including Ethereum, Avalanche, Polygon, Arbitrum, Optimism, Base, Solana, and Sui, with ongoing expansions. Developers integrate it through Circle's APIs and smart contracts, allowing seamless cross-chain deposits, withdrawals, and settlements. Version 2 (CCTP V2), launched in 2025, introduces faster settlement times (seconds vs. minutes) and "Hooks" for customizable post-transfer actions via smart contracts. As a permissionless protocol, CCTP powers ecosystem partners like wallets, bridges, and exchanges, fostering capital efficiency and reducing risks associated with traditional cross-chain solutions. It is secured by Circle's minting authority and on-chain verifiability, aligning with Web3's interoperability goals.
CCTP integrates with Cheesecake Labs via Circle Alliance for USDC bridging/swapping tools.
Links
x.com/circleIntegrated with Cheesecake Labs through Circle Alliance Program to develop USDC bridging and swapping tools using CCTP as the core infrastructure.
CCTP handles over 50% of all bridged traffic across major bridge providers tracked by Circle. The Interop Labs acquisition deal is expected to close in early 2026.
Circle enters an agreement to acquire the interop_labs team (initial developers of Axelar) to accelerate multichain infrastructure development with Arc and CCTP. The Axelar Network, Foundation, and AXL token remain independent and continue operating under community governance.
Q3 2025 CCTP transfer volume hits $28.9 billion with 6.3x YoY growth.
EURC launches on World Chain following earlier USDC and CCTP deployment, bringing native euro stablecoin support across 6 blockchains for payments, DeFi services, and global euro savings accounts.
USDC linking between HyperCore and HyperEVM completed through CCTP integration, enabling natively minted cross-chain USDC deposits with the Arbitrum CCTP route deployed by Circle.
CCTP goes live on Rango platform, enabling native USDC transfers across 11 supported chains including Ethereum, Solana, Sui, Monad, Polygon, Arbitrum, Optimism, Avalanche, Base, Linea, and Sonic.
USDC and CCTP go live on Starknet with 6 Day 1 applications including AVNU, Ekubo Protocol, Braavos, Ready, Vesu, and Xverse, expanding native USDC to 30 blockchains and CCTP transfers to 19 blockchains.
Stablecoins (USDC+USDT) now dominate bridging activity replacing ETH as the top bridged assets, with total bridged volume increasing >10x.
Native USDC and CCTP V2 coming to Starknet blockchain, with LayerZero integration also planned.
CCTP deploys on Monad blockchain with 11 Day 1 partners including Coinbase, Curve Finance, Across Protocol, and Wormhole, increasing total CCTP coverage to 18 blockchains.
V2 becomes the canonical version with V1 manual phase-out beginning July 31, 2026, introducing faster-than-finality settlement and programmable hooks across 17 blockchains with Bridge Kit and increased transaction limits.
Hyperlane integrates CCTP V2 to enable USDC liquidity rebalancing across Arbitrum, Avalanche, Base, Ethereum, HyperEVM, Ink, Linea, OP Mainnet, Plume, Polygon PoS, Sei, Sonic, Unichain, World Chain and additional chains.
Circle launches AI-powered developer tools including an AI chatbot and MCP server that generate code for CCTP integration, now available to all developers building on Circle's platform.
Sei Network deploys CCTP V2 and native USDC, facilitating settlement of over $200M in tokenized institutional assets from BlackRock, Brevan Howard, and Hamilton Lane through KAIO.
Transfer volume reached an all-time high of approximately $14.5 billion in October, up approximately 7x year-over-year.
CCTP V2 and USDC launch on Monad blockchain mainnet day 1, alongside Circle Wallets and Circle Contracts to support the developer ecosystem.
Arc public testnet launches with native CCTP v2 integration, with Sequence selected as an early development platform supporting the testnet. Developers can now build on Arc using CCTP v2 for cross-chain liquidity with low slippage through Sequence Builder.
AWS Sr. Solutions Architect Jigna Gandhi's team built a serverless USDC bridge using CCTP V2 and published a blog post documenting the implementation.
LayerZero and Stargate integrations launch on Starknet in the next few weeks alongside CCTP v2 and native USDC.
CCTP V2 and native USDC will launch on Starknet blockchain.
Circle launches Bridge Kit, a developer toolkit that wraps CCTP V2 core functions into streamlined SDK methods with step-by-step documentation, production-ready code samples, and built-in monetization logic enabling developers to earn from cross-chain transfers.
CCTP cross-chain bridge transaction volume grew approximately 650% year-over-year based on quarterly stablecoin transfer volume.
V2 protocol goes live on Ink blockchain with six integration partners (BungeeExchange, CctpExchange, cctpto, InterportFi, VelodromeFi, Wormhole), bringing CCTP V2 cross-chain connectivity to 17 blockchains and total USDC support to 28 blockchains.
V2 protocol launches on Polygon PoS with seven day-one integrations, connecting eleven blockchains through capital-efficient USDC transfers.
V2 protocol launches on Solana blockchain, enabling enhanced USDC transfers and cross-chain interoperability.
Protocol expands to Optimism Mainnet with three day-one integrations, connecting eight blockchains with capital-efficient transfers.
Cross-chain transfer volume reaches $900M in 30 days across multiple protocols including CCTP.
Quarterly transfer volume hits ATH in Q1 '25 with $50B annualized volume.
V2 protocol launches on Arbitrum with six day-one integration partners and connects to four major blockchains, featuring instant USDC settlement and capital-efficient transfers.
Removal of gas introspection threatens cross-chain messaging functionality and may force costly alternative solutions.