On December 16, according to official news, USDC issuer Circle announced that it has signed an agreement to acquire the Interop Labs team and its proprietary intellectual property. The acquisition is expected to be completed in early 2026. Circle looks forward to contributing to the broader interoperability field and continuing to explore opportunities in directions that align with its vision of an open, interconnected, and scalable on-chain economy.
Interop Labs has been a core contributor to Axelar, one of the most advanced frameworks in cross-chain communication and token transfer, and has worked with the growing community of open-source contributors to drive Axelar's core development. By directly integrating Interop Labs' talent and technology into Circle, the aim is to accelerate the progress of two core initiatives: Arc—Circle is a blockchain layer designed for enterprise applications and dedicated to becoming the operating system of the internet economy; and the cross-chain transfer protocol.
It is important to clarify that this transaction involves only the Interop Labs team and its proprietary intellectual property. With the team joining Circle, the Axelar network, foundation, and AXL token will continue to operate independently under community governance, and the open-source intellectual property will remain open. Common Prefix, another contributor to the Axelar project, will take over the relevant work from Interop Labs.
