Native USDC is Going xChain: Wormhole Integrates CCTP

We're incredibly excited to announce that Wormhole¹ has integrated with Circle’s new Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol (CCTP) to provide a seamless chain-agnostic development experience to builders across Web3. Wormhole is launching a new set of contracts that compose with CCTP to enable generic messaging on top of native USDC cross-chain transfers.

Developers can leverage this solution to power seamless, composable cross-chain value transfer and unlock previously impossible cross-chain user experiences with USDC. This integration is now live on testnet via wormhole.com/native-usdc-demo.

1 Wormhole is a generic message-passing protocol developed by Jump Crypto. Circle has a commercial relationship with Jump Crypto.

Don’t Just Transfer — Transfer and Swap, Purchase, Borrow, Fund + More

Wormhole’s integration with CCTP enables significantly more powerful cross-chain applications and the benefits of burning and minting native USDC across chains. Wormhole-powered generic messaging lets developers compose an arbitrary set of cross-chain functions with native USDC transfers.

Beyond asset transfers, Wormhole’s integration with CCTP expands the design space for cross-chain DeFi protocols, including:

• Borrow-lend protocols resolving fragmented liquidity by allowing borrowing and lending USDC across chains.
• Decentralized exchanges improve trade execution by enabling USDC holders on a separate chain to provide liquidity.
• Yield aggregators make yield markets more efficient by deploying USDC liquidity across chains.

The Wormhole Foundation will be providing grants to projects that focus on any of (but not limited to) the core functionalities above.

To better illustrate these capabilities, Wormhole has released two sample demos (and the code repositories) that illustrate what developers can build on top of the WH x CCTP smart contracts:

Cross-Chain Native Swap - Wormhole’s native swap demo utilizes native USDC transfers as a “highway” that subsequently enables cross-chain swaps on the destination and source chains. For example, a user wants to swap native ETH on Ethereum into AVAX on Avalanche. The contracts utilize both Wormhole’s generic messaging and Circle’s CCTP to:

1. Swap native ETH on the source chain into USDC
2. Transfer that USDC to Avalanche
3. Swap the USDC into AVAX
4. Finally, send AVAX to the user’s Avalanche wallet

Cross-Chain USDC Transfer - Wormhole’s cross-chain transfer + swap demo composes a token transfer and a swap into a single transaction. A user can pay gas on the source chain to transfer native USDC between Chain A and Chain B while also electing to swap some of the transferred USDC into the destination gas token.

What are the benefits?

• You can compose any function with native USDC transfers. Wormhole’s integration with Circle’s Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol gives developers the power to compose functions on top of native USDC transfers, enabling interactions like native, cross-chain swapping between ETH and AVAX.
• It does away with slippage, as there’s no need to swap a wrapped token for a chain’s native token. All USDC Swaps through CCTP occur 1:1.
• No more worrying about gas. The Wormhole relayer network enables you to transfer messages without having to pay gas fees on the target chain. Now, it’s possible to pay gas on the source chain.
• It’s more secure. We leverage validators for security in the form of 19 Wormhole Guardians that attest to messages they observe on all connected chains. They accomplish this by running a full node for each chain to monitor the Wormhole Core contracts (learn more here). Those contracts verify that USDC has been burnt on the source chain by fetching a signed attestation from Circle’s automated attestation service. Wormhole contracts can then provide authorization to CCTP to execute the minting of USDC on the destination chain.

Want to learn more?

Wormhole is open source from the start and will continue to build on Circle’s platform. Dive into our docs to begin developing on the cutting-edge of cross-chain and incorporate CCTP into your app today.

1 Wormhole is a generic message-passing protocol developed by Jump Crypto. Circle has a commercial relationship with Jump Crypto.