Thomas Daniels
With a major update to its Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol (CCTP), Circle has significantly shortened the USDC transaction settlement time to just a few seconds.
Developers can now take advantage of Fast Transfer and Hooks, two essential aspects of CCTP v2 that are intended to improve cross-chain liquidity and transaction efficiency. Regardless of the original blockchain, the USDC settlement times are reduced by the Fast Transfer feature from up to 15 minutes on Ethereum and Layer-2 networks to only a few seconds.
In addition to speed, the Hooks feature improves composability by allowing developers to automate destination chain post-transfer operations. This advances the automation of smart contracts and increases their efficiency and usability.
According to Jonathan Lim, Principal Product Manager at Circle, “Traditional cross-chain flows frequently introduce trust assumptions, block-finality delays, and liquidity fragmentation.” “CCTP v2 mitigates these issues and establishes an institutional-grade cross-chain infrastructure for crypto capital markets.”
In an effort to improve authentication and the USDC transaction experience, Circle recently added passkey functionality to its Modular Wallets, which was followed by the release of CCTP v2.
Network Assistance and Upcoming Growth
With intentions to expand to more blockchains, CCTP v2 will initially support Avalanche, Base, and Ethereum. The updated protocol has already been incorporated by Wormhole, Mayan, Interport, and Socket, highlighting its significance for cross-chain interoperability.
Since its April 2023 introduction, Circle’s CCTP has been increasingly adopted by major blockchain ecosystems, integrating with bridge infrastructures and several decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms.
