Circle has signed an agreement to acquire the Interop Labs team along with its proprietary intellectual property, the company behind the development of the Axelar Network.
Circle is a global financial technology firm building a future where digital assets are issued easily and move securely, compliantly, and seamlessly across 100+ blockchain ecosystems. Achieving this vision requires foundational infrastructure that allows assets to flow and settle across general purpose, sovereign and permissioned blockchains without friction. The acquisition is intended to leverage the Interop Labs technology and cross-chain blockchain infrastructure to accelerate interoperability across Circle’s stack. The Axelar stack, built by Interop Labs, provides a TCP/IP–like interoperability layer for Web3 that supports on-chain finance with an open, scalable, and secure architecture.
Interop Labs was co-founded in 2021 by Associate Professor Sergey Gorbunov (pictured on right) of the Cheriton School of Computer Science, who also served as the company’s CEO.
The Axelar Network, AXL token, and its foundation remain independent, open-source and community governed. Common Prefix, another primary and long-time contributor to the Axelar Network, will take a leading role in the Axelar developer community, assuming many of Interop Labs’ current activities.
“We are proud of what we’ve built with Axelar and excited to see our team and technology become a core part of Circle’s interoperability strategy,” Professor Gorbunov said. “Together, we will lay the groundwork for the next era of cross-chain finance.”