Circle has announced the acquisition of the initial development team of Axelar, Interop Labs, along with its intellectual property, to accelerate its cross-chain interoperability strategy.

BlockBeats News, December 16th, according to official sources, 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 space, continuing to explore opportunities aligned with its vision of an open, interconnected, and scalable chain-based economy.

Interop Labs has been a key contributor to Axelar, one of the most advanced frameworks in the cross-chain communication and token transfer field, and has worked closely with the growing community of open-source contributors to drive Axelar's core development. By integrating Interop Labs' talent and technology directly into Circle, the aim is to accelerate the advancement of two core initiatives: one being Arc—designed by Circle for enterprise applications, aiming to become a layer of the blockchain Internet economic operating system; the other being the cross-chain transfer protocol.

It is important to note 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 token will continue to operate independently under community governance, and open-source intellectual property will remain open. Another contributor to the Axelar project, Common Prefix, will take over the relevant work of Interop Labs.