Circle Upgrades Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol Promising Near-Instant USDC Settlements

Circle has launched on Tuesday the upgraded version of its Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol (CCTP V2), a tool that facilitates USDC transfers across blockchains. The company said that the upgrade significantly cuts down transaction times to seconds from the typical 13-19 minutes on Ethereum and its Layer 2 networks.

CCTP, introduced in 2023, is designed to move digital assets across blockchains without relying on traditional liquidity pools and third-party liquidity providers. Since its debut, the protocol has handled over $36 billion in transaction volume, according to Circle.

The upgraded version offers a Fast Transfer feature, which enables near-instant transfers between supported networks, the press release said. Standard Transfer, which operates at a blockchain’s native settlement speed, remains available.

Another new feature, called Hooks, allows developers to program automatic actions such as asset swaps or treasury management on the receiving blockchain. This reduces manual processing and enhances efficiency for decentralized finance (DeFi) applications.

The upgraded version went live on Ethereum, Avalanche and Base, with more blockchain integrations planned later this year, the firm said. Several platforms, including CCTP.Money, Interport, LI.FI, Mayan, Socket and Wormhole already integrated the protocol.

Circle is the issuer of USDC, the second largest stablecoin in the crypto market with a circulating supply of $58 billion. Pegged to the U.S. dollar, USDC is popular in crypto trading, DeFi and increasingly used as payments, remittances and real-world asset settlements among traditional finance firms.