Interchain USDC: Hyperlane integrates CCTP

The rapid growth of builders leveraging the crypto ecosystem has sparked a whole new landscape of decentralized applications. Within them, stablecoins have emerged as the first killer app, with Circle’s USD Coin (USDC) leading the charge. 

However, most blockchains remain isolated ecosystems, with limited communication with each other, fragmenting liquidity and the user experience. Users have to deal with complicated infrastructure like bridges to get to the applications they’re interested in, while developers are forced to build fragmented applications between the blockchains they want to support.

Circle introduced Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol (CCTP) to help solve these problems, enabling USDC to flow natively across blockchains via a programmatic burn-and-mint process. At Hyperlane, we’re focused on building interoperability solutions to help developers create innovative apps for a Multi-Chain world. Naturally, CCTP was a great fit for embedding within our architecture.

Introducing Hyperlane

Hyperlane¹ is the first permissionless blockchain interoperability layer built to tackle the problems resulting from app fragmentation head-on. Hyperlane functions as a network between blockchains, empowering developers to create Interchain Applications, apps that can serve users on any blockchain and abstract away the complexity of navigating multiple chains. 

Hyperlane currently offers APIs for sending/receiving messages between chains and an SDK for building Interchain Applications. And now, Hyperlane’s integration with CCTP enables developers to build cross-chain USDC experiences into their apps with confidence and deliver a streamlined UX for users. 

1 Hyperlane is a Circle Ventures portfolio company

Why Hyperlane?

• Customizable Security: Hyperlane’s modular security stack empowers developers to complement USDC’s blockchain interoperability with a customizable security model. You can choose from out-of-the-box solutions such as economic security or optimistic security. You can also stack additional security layers such as safety parameters that filter out hacks and give users a period of time to edit their transactions.
  

• Permissionless Expansion: Hyperlane’s new launch of Permissionless Interoperability enables anyone to deploy it on any chain and access the benefits of interchain interoperability. We envision this will unlock more chains and accelerate USDC adoption in new ecosystems.
  
  
• Smoother User Experience: The current interchain user experience is clunky and complex with users needing to use bridges just to move value. This is poor UX and a significant barrier for new users. Hyperlane + CCTP simplifies this experience exponentially by moving the complexity of blockchain interoperability and value transfer to the application-level instead of user-level.
  
  
• Native CCTP API: Unlike other interoperability protocols, this integration is built natively into Hyperlane’s core API to deliver a streamlined developer experience for easy access to CCTP from any Hyperlane supported chain at launch.

Why did Hyperlane choose to build on CCTP?

CCTP was developed to light a path for mainstream users to onboard to Web3 by abstracting complexity away from users, so that they’re always holding official, native USDC. The CCTP architecture authenticates transfers via Circle’s attestation service, reducing the need for trust in additional third parties, making it seamless for Hyperlane builders to integrate. As a developer tool, CCTP’s composability makes it easy to combine with Hyperlane, resulting in a turnkey way for developers to power cross-chain USDC transfers in their applications.

Looking Beyond

CCTP will initially launch on Ethereum and Avalanche, with more chain integrations expected. We envision Hyperlane’s simple API and SDK streamlining the developer experience for Circle’s CCTP as it expands to support USDC across multiple blockchain ecosystems. Hyperlane’s customizable security will provide a safer user experience by enabling developers integrating with CCTP to stack additional security layers to filter out hacks and further protect users. Permissionless Hyperlane deployments will help USDC liquidity flow to every supported chain and for every user. The improvements on interchain developer experience, user experience, and security, can ultimately accelerate the adoption of USDC as a seamless source of liquidity anywhere. 

Want to learn more?

Connect with the Hyperlane crew directly on Discord and start building with protocols like CCTP.

1 Hyperlane is a Circle Ventures portfolio company