Circle Gateway Goes Live: Crosschain USDC Transfers in 500 Milliseconds

Edyme

August 19, 2025

Currently, Gateway is live on major chains including Ethereum, Arbitrum, Polygon PoS, Avalanche, Base, OP Mainnet, and Unichain

Circle Gateway Goes Live: Crosschain USDC Transfers in 500 Milliseconds?

Stablecoin issuer Circle has launched Circle Gateway, a new infrastructure designed to streamline how users move USDC across multiple blockchains.

Announced on August 19, 2025, the tool seeks to address one of crypto’s long-standing issues, fragmented liquidity, by enabling near-instant transfers of USDC between chains.

How Circle Gateway works

Circle Gateway introduces a non-custodial process that allows users to maintain full control of their USDC while moving it between networks.

The system works by depositing USDC into a Gateway Wallet contract, signing a burn intent, and minting the same amount of USDC on the destination chain.

According to Circle, the process completes in under half a second, removing the need to pre-position funds across different blockchains.

Currently, Gateway is live on major chains including Ethereum, Arbitrum, Polygon PoS, Avalanche, Base, OP Mainnet, and Unichain. Circle has also confirmed plans to expand to additional blockchains in the future.

We’re excited to announce Circle Gateway has arrived on mainnet!

Circle Gateway is a new primitive enabling a unified @USDC balance instantly accessible crosschain in <500 ms.

Now available on @arbitrum, @avax, @base, @ethereum, @Optimism, @0xPolygon, and @unichain with more… pic.twitter.com/FClxrGFdmm
— Circle (@circle) August 19, 2025

This launch builds on Circle’s push to improve efficiency in digital finance. Rather than forcing businesses and users to juggle liquidity across multiple ecosystems, Gateway centralizes the process into a single interface, reducing both operational overhead and capital lock-up.

Partnerships and industry impact

Gateway’s debut is supported by industry players such as Fireblocks, Aori, and BlockRadar, who are working with Circle to improve crosschain liquidity and user experience.

The infrastructure is expected to be particularly valuable for exchanges, custodians, DeFi trading firms, payment service providers, and digital wallets. By enabling faster and more flexible liquidity management, these entities can better serve user withdrawals, payments, and crosschain activity.

Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire described Gateway as “a huge step in improving cross-chain UX and safety.”

The company believes that crosschain infrastructure will open new use cases for decentralized finance, making it easier for individuals and institutions alike to interact with applications across different chains without switching platforms.