Circle expands Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol to EURC and cirBTC

The expansion allows developers to move supported tokens across chains using a burn-and-mint mechanism, which avoids the liquidity pools typical of traditional bridge designs. While EURC now enjoys broad coverage across Avalanche, Base, Ethereum, World Chain, and Arc, support for cirBTC is currently restricted to routes between Arc and Ethereum. The protocol aims to provide sub-10-second transfer speeds on specific Arc routes, supported by a forwarding service that eliminates the need for users to hold destination-chain gas tokens.

Despite these updates, the company's Gateway product—which provides unified balance management—remains limited to USDC. Circle has indicated that EURC and cirBTC support for Gateway is planned for the future, though no specific timeline has been disclosed. The broader Arc ecosystem, which launched publicly on September 16, continues to scale its asset layer. With institutional validators including BlackRock, Visa, and Mastercard, the network is positioning itself as a hub for both Circle-issued assets and third-party tokens integrated through the Crosschain Token Standard.