Circle Launches Crosschain Forwarding Service for CCTP Integration

Luisa Crawford
Jan 22, 2026 13:36

Circle’s new forwarding service eliminates manual attestation fetching for USDC transfers, cutting crosschain transfer times by up to 50-200% across 14 chains.

Circle has rolled out a crosschain forwarding service integrated directly into its Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol, eliminating one of the biggest pain points for developers building multichain applications. The service handles attestation fetching, destination chain transactions, and gas management automatically—tasks that previously required significant infrastructure investment.

The forwarding service launches with support for 14 chains: Arbitrum, Avalanche, Base, Ethereum, HyperEVM, Ink, Linea, Monad, OP Mainnet, Polygon PoS, Sei, Sonic, Unichain, and World Chain. Circle plans to expand coverage across all CCTP-enabled routes by the end of H1 2026.

What Actually Changes

Here’s the technical shift: developers previously had to burn USDC on the source chain, then separately fetch attestations from Circle, submit mint transactions on the destination chain, and manage gas wallets across every network. That’s a lot of moving parts that can break.

The new service handles all of this. Developers specify forwarding instructions using existing hookData and maxFee parameters during the burn transaction. Circle’s infrastructure validates the request, signs the attestation, and broadcasts the destination mint. Fees come directly from the minted USDC—users don’t need destination chain gas.

According to Circle, inefficient attestation fetching typically adds 50-200% to total transfer times. The forwarding service removes that bottleneck entirely.

Already Powering Hyperliquid

This isn’t theoretical. The forwarding service is already live for Hyperliquid users, enabling one-click USDC deposits from any CCTP-enabled chain to Hyperliquid’s orderbook DEX. No attestation fetching, no manual minting on HyperEVM.

The service also works with Circle xReserve, allowing blockchain teams to automatically mint USDC-backed stablecoins on destination chains for their users.

The Developer Trade-off Problem

Crosschain execution has forced teams into uncomfortable choices. Option one: run your own infrastructure across every chain you support, managing RPC access, monitoring, gas funding, and retry logic. Option two: integrate third-party services with different APIs, trust assumptions, and failure modes that complicate debugging.

Circle’s positioning this as a first-party alternative that sits within their existing interop stack. No new contracts to deploy, no additional trust assumptions beyond Circle itself.

Broader Context

This launch builds on recent CCTP momentum. CCTP V2 became the canonical version in November 2025, with V1 scheduled for phase-out starting July 31, 2026. Circle’s January 2026 report highlighted the protocol’s role in what they’re calling the “Internet Financial System.”

The forwarding service is available now on testnet. Developers can join Circle’s Early Access Program for priority mainnet access. Integration with Bridge Kit and Circle Gateway is planned for H1 2026.

For teams already running CCTP integrations, this represents a potential infrastructure cost reduction. For those evaluating crosschain solutions, it removes one of the bigger operational headaches in the space.

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