Circle agreed to acquire the Interop Labs team and its proprietary tech

Circle moved its cross-chain push forward by signing a deal to take in the full Interop Labs team and their proprietary tech.

The company said it wants a system where digital assets move with ease across more than 100 blockchain networks, without strange rules or heavy delays.

Circle said this deal supports that plan and gives it the base it needs to let assets move across general-purpose chains, sovereign networks, and permissioned systems.

The company expects the deal to close in early 2026 and said it wants this move to help build an open and connected on-chain economy that scales without friction.

Circle said Interop Labs has played a major role in Axelar, a framework used for secure cross-chain messaging and token transfer. The team has also worked with a large group of open-source developers who worked on Axelar’s core tools.

Circle said it wants to bring Interop Labs’ talent and tech straight into its own stack to speed up work on Arc, its enterprise L1 chain that aims to act as the “Economic OS” for the internet, and on CCTP, the company’s cross-chain transfer protocol.

Circle said this deal is only about the Interop Labs team and its private tech, and that the Axelar Network, Axelar Foundation, and the AXL token will still run on their own through community oversight. Common Prefix, another Axelar contributor, will take over the work Interop Labs handled.

Circle outlines the goals of the deal

Circle listed three main goals for the agreement. First, the company said it wants to make assets issued on Arc work smoothly across many chains.

Second, it wants to expand tools and SDKs for developers who build multichain apps. Third, the company aims to grow its own first-party app development.

Interop Labs CEO Sergey Gorbunov said, “We’re incredibly proud of what we’ve built with Axelar and excited to see our team and technology become a core part of Circle’s interoperability strategy. Together, we will lay the groundwork for the next era of cross-chain finance. Axelar continues as an open-source innovator, and we are working closely with the Common Prefix team to ensure continuity and long-term support.”

Circle Chief Product and Technology Officer Nikhil Chandhok said, “Our goal is to make blockchain connectivity seamless, and bringing the Interop Labs team into Circle will accelerate our Arc and CCTP roadmap towards building the hub for multichain internet finance. Circle is committed to supporting interoperability with many on-chain networks, just as we have with USDC, CCTP, and other blockchain infrastructure products from Circle.”

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