Circle announces the acquisition of Axelar's initial development team, Interop Labs, and its intellectual property to accelerate cross-chain interoperability deployment.

BlockBeats News, December 16 — According to official sources, USDC issuer Circle announced that it has signed an agreement to acquire Interop Labs and its proprietary intellectual property. The acquisition is expected to be completed in early 2026. Circle looks forward to contributing to the broader interoperability space and continues to explore opportunities aligned with its vision of open, interconnected, and scalable on-chain economies. Interop Labs has been one of the most advanced frameworks in cross-chain communication and token transfer, notably as a core contributor to Axelar, and has worked with a growing open-source community to drive Axelar’s core development. By integrating Interop Labs’ talent and technology directly into Circle, the goal is to accelerate two major initiatives: first, Arc — a blockchain designed for enterprise applications, aiming to become a layer of the internet economy operating system; second, the cross-chain transfer protocol. It should be clarified that this transaction only involves the Interop Labs team and its proprietary intellectual property. With the team joining Circle, the Axelar network, foundation, and AXL tokens will continue to operate independently under community governance, and open-source intellectual property will remain accessible. Another contributor to the Axelar project, Common Prefix, will take over the related work of Interop Labs.