Circle

Circle Gateway is Circle's crosschain USDC infrastructure, giving builders a unified USDC balance that can be tapped on any supported chain in under 500 ms — no bridging delays, no per-chain inventory management, no manual rebalancing.

Built on top of USDC and complementary to Circle's Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol (CCTP), Gateway is designed for apps, treasuries and liquidity providers operating across many blockchains. A single integration lets teams serve on-chain USDC demand on multiple chains with less working capital, while users retain full self-custodial control — funds only move with their signature and withdrawals are trustless.

Best for: DeFi apps, wallets, exchanges, payment platforms and treasury teams that move or supply USDC across multiple blockchains and need instant, on-demand liquidity without pre-positioning capital on each chain.

Circle Gateway is an enterprise infrastructure product priced on a custom basis based on transaction volumes, supported chains and integration scope. Contact Circle for tailored pricing.

What's included

• Unified USDC balance across Ethereum, Solana, Base, Arbitrum, Avalanche, OP Mainnet, Polygon PoS, HyperEVM, Sei, Sonic, Unichain and World Chain (Gateway).
• Instant (<500 ms) crosschain transfers after balance is established.
• Full developer API, Gateway Wallet/Minter contracts and Hooks for composable crosschain actions.
• Built-in compliance, KYC/AML tooling and VASP wallet screening.

Gateway vs CCTP — pick the right rail

• Gateway — hold a unified USDC balance instantly accessible on supported chains; best for on-demand liquidity and consolidated balances.
• CCTP — burn-and-mint USDC from chain A to chain B; transfer speed depends on source-chain finality (Standard Transfer) or ~8–20 seconds (Fast Transfer).

Teams often use both: CCTP for native A→B transfers of existing USDC balances, and Gateway for a single unified balance that's instantly spendable across every supported chain.

Instant crosschain USDC access

• Unified USDC balance accessible on any supported chain in <500 ms — no bridging delays or source-chain finality waits.
• Eliminates the need to pre-position capital or forecast demand per chain; tap into on-demand liquidity on demand.
• A single integration scales USDC availability to additional chains without redundant integrations.

Full user control & self-custody

• Funds only move with the user's signature — Circle never holds keys on users' behalf.
• Trustless withdrawals — users stay in control of their USDC at all times.
• One-click crosschain transfers in a single step, with a consistent UX across chains.

Developer-grade API & hooks

• Submit a signed burn intent via the Gateway API; Gateway responds instantly with a signed attestation.
• Submit the attestation to a Gateway Minter contract to mint USDC and trigger arbitrary actions via Hooks.
• Abstracts away chain complexity — build crosschain UX without managing bridge congestion or per-chain RPCs.

Compliance & risk tooling built in

• Real-time verification against jurisdictional regulations and internal policies.
• Robust wallet support — distinguishes VASP-hosted vs self-hosted wallets and acts accordingly.
• Holistic monitoring for high-risk behavioural patterns (structuring, smurfing, velocity).
• Secure PII transfer with encrypted storage and transmission between VASPs.
• Integrated case management to prioritise, track and resolve alerts.