2025-12-25 22:22:12

Recently, there has been a lot of buzz in the market about Circle pouring money into acquiring cross-chain giant Axelar. USDC could suddenly cover multiple blockchains. It sounds like that's the case, but upon closer inspection, it's not.

Circle has not acquired Axelar. What actually happened is a deep protocol-level integration — the strategic significance of this operation is even more valuable than an acquisition.

Let's look at why USDC must do this. Stability? That's not the issue. The real bottleneck is "accessibility."

The current situation is quite awkward: for every new blockchain added, Circle has to deploy, audit, and manage liquidity separately. The costs are staggering. Even worse, there are many versions of cross-chain USDC — wrapped USDC, various bridging versions — and in the end, the trust isn't unified, and security risks pile up. Most critically, USDC is fragmented, trapped within a single chain or an ecosystem, making it impossible to form a truly global settlement network.

Circle wants to break this deadlock and has launched CCTP (Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol). Through protocol-level integration with Axelar, USDC can transfer across chains in its native form, no longer relying on various bridging solutions. This is not just about expanding coverage but upgrading the entire infrastructure of the US dollar settlement network.

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DarkPoolWatcher

· 6h ago

Ah, another wave of information asymmetry. The speed at which market rumors spread is incredible. The real idea is to focus on the protocol layer, which is much smarter than simply throwing money at acquisitions. The issue of USDC fragmentation is indeed disgusting; there are now too many cross-chain versions.

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ConsensusBot

· 6h ago

Oh no, it's just a rumor. Real strategic players are focusing on protocol integration—that's the true core.

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SneakyFlashloan

· 7h ago

Is this another clickbait headline? Acquiring a bunch of nonsense, and now the agreement integration is talking about extraordinary phenomena. Got it. It’s just Circle trying to save costs. Instead of deploying on each chain individually, they might as well just rely on Axelar. The fragmentation of USDC is indeed annoying, but can CCTP really solve it... It still depends on the actual deployment results later. The USD settlement network sounds fancy, but honestly, it’s all about liquidity and coverage. With this combination of strategies, Axelar’s position has really risen.

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LightningSentry

· 7h ago

Oh, wait, no acquisition? Then how were all those news articles hyping it up... Protocol integration is also fine, anyway USDC finally doesn't need to be fragmented anymore. Can it really become universally compatible across the entire chain this time? There are indeed too many wrapped versions, which is a pitfall. The trust is severely fragmented. If this stabilizes, the interaction costs could be significantly reduced. Just worried whether Axelar can truly support such high traffic... Will the user experience become a bottleneck again?

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BearMarketLightning

· 7h ago

It's the same kind of rumor again, acquiring a hammer, but it's clearly just an agreement integration. However, talking about it this way can indeed attract attention.

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MetaNomad

· 7h ago

Hmm, this move is indeed clever. Instead of spending money on acquisitions, direct protocol integration is more cost-effective. USDC is finally about to connect its vital channels.

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DYORMaster

· 7h ago

Ah, here we go again with another wave of fake "acquisition" news. Need to take a closer look. How to put it, the idea of protocol integration is indeed clever. The issue of USDC fragmentation should have been solved long ago. There are so many wrapped versions, and each chain has to be managed separately. Is Circle finally cutting off the source? But then again, whether true unified liquidity can be achieved still depends on the actual implementation results. CCTP sounds like a promising direction, but cross-chain protocols have had quite a few failures over the years...

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