interop

According to official news, Tether Investments announced a strategic investment in LayerZero Labs. LayerZero Labs is a developer of interoperability protocols, and its technology is widely used to support cross-chain value transfer in the global digital asset ecosystem. The investment aims to support LayerZero Labs in developing efficient and secure cross-chain technology.LayerZero Labs' technology has been used to support cross-chain transfers of assets such as USDt0 and XAUt0. Since its launch, USDt0 has achieved over $70 billion in cross-chain value transfer in less than 12 months, validating the global scale interoperability of its technology. Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino stated that LayerZero Labs' technology provides critical support for real-time cross-chain transfers of digital assets, particularly suitable for micropayment scenarios in the AI agent economy.

According to official news, ZetaChain has announced the official launch of the AI interoperability layer ZetaChain 2, along with the release of the privacy-centric large model aggregation application Anuma.ZetaChain 2 is a brand new AI interoperability layer designed to help developers build applications and agents that can operate across AI models, enabling global monetization without the need for backend infrastructure while preserving private user context. ZetaChain 2 consists of two core components: the AI Portal and the Private Memory Layer.The AI Portal serves as a unified routing and execution layer, allowing applications to access multiple AI model providers without being locked in, and includes support for availability, fallback, and cost/performance optimization. The Private Memory Layer is a protocol-level memory system that protects user context through encryption and access control, allowing experiences to persist across sessions while maintaining user control over the access scope of applications and agents.Anuma is the first consumer-level AI application based on ZetaChain 2, currently in beta testing and has launched a public waitlist, allowing users to apply for early access through the public waitlist. The product integrates multiple leading AI models in a single experience, enabling users to switch between different models without losing context, and is designed to keep memories private and under user control.

According to Jinshi reports, sources revealed that the Reserve Bank of India proposed that BRICS member countries interconnect their digital currencies for cross-border payments. The Reserve Bank of India has requested the government to include this proposal in the agenda for the 2026 BRICS summit.

According to a Chainlink announcement, Swift has partnered with Chainlink and UBS Asset Management to complete key interoperability tests with BNP Paribas, Intesa Sanpaolo, and Société Générale, achieving seamless settlement of tokenized assets between traditional payment systems and blockchain platforms.This pilot covers DvP settlement, interest payments, and redemption processes, marking a significant advancement for Swift in unifying on-chain and off-chain financial systems. The initiative focuses on key processes such as DvP settlement, interest payments, and the redemption of tokenized bonds, encompassing roles such as payment agents, custodians, and registrars. The project builds on an earlier pilot completed by Swift and Chainlink under the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) "Guardian Program," demonstrating how financial institutions can leverage existing Swift infrastructure to facilitate off-chain cash settlements for tokenized funds.

According to official news, Gate Layer has officially launched its cross-chain bridge feature and completed integration with the cross-chain infrastructure Stargate, bringing more efficient and secure cross-chain asset transfer capabilities to the ecosystem. With the number of on-chain addresses exceeding 100 million and cumulative transaction volume reaching tens of millions, this upgrade will further enhance the network connectivity of Gate Layer, providing developers and users with a smoother multi-chain interaction experience.After the launch of the cross-chain bridge, Gate Layer will possess more efficient cross-chain asset transfer capabilities, higher network interoperability, and ecosystem connectivity, significantly improving the scalability and flexibility of dApps in multi-chain scenarios.The implementation of this feature is an important step for Gate Layer in advancing the construction of high-performance, open Web3 infrastructure, and marks a new phase for the Gate ecosystem towards broader cross-chain interconnectivity.

USDC issuer Circle has announced that it has signed an agreement to acquire the Interop Labs team and its proprietary intellectual property. This acquisition is expected to be completed in early 2026. Circle looks forward to contributing to the broader interoperability space and continuing to explore opportunities that align with its vision of an open, interconnected, and scalable on-chain economy.Interop Labs has been a key contributor to Axelar, one of the most advanced frameworks in cross-chain communication and token transfer, and has been driving the core development of Axelar alongside a growing community of open-source contributors. By directly integrating the talent and technology of Interop Labs into Circle, the aim is to accelerate the advancement of two core initiatives: the first is Arc—Circle's blockchain layer designed for enterprise applications, committed to becoming the operating system of the internet economy;The second is the cross-chain transfer protocol. It is important to clarify that this transaction only involves the Interop Labs team and its proprietary intellectual property. As this team joins Circle, the Axelar network, foundation, and AXL token will continue to operate independently under community governance, and the open-source intellectual property will remain open. Another contributor to the Axelar project, Common Prefix, will take over the relevant work of Interop Labs.

According to BusinessWire, Pheasant Network under PG Labs has completed a $2 million seed round financing and ecological funding to advance AI × Intent-driven decentralized finance interoperability. The financing was led by mint, with support from the Ethereum Foundation, Polygon Labs, Optimism, and others.The project has processed over $200 million in cross-chain transactions and plans to expand the application of the PNT token, launch AI-assisted routing, and one-click cross-chain operations.

The Ethereum L2 network Base, incubated by Coinbase, has launched a cross-chain bridge connecting Solana, supporting the native use of Solana assets on Base, and allowing the migration of Base assets to Solana.The bridge is supported by Chainlink's Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP) and ensures security through dual verification of messages by Coinbase and Chainlink nodes.

According to Cointelegraph, the Bitcoin native interoperability protocol Portal to Bitcoin has completed a $25 million financing round and launched an atomic OTC platform based on Hash Time-Locked Contracts (HTLC).This round of financing was led by digital asset lending institution JTSA Global, with previous investments from Coinbase Ventures, OKX Ventures, Arrington Capital, and others.Chandra Duggirala, founder and CEO of Portal to Bitcoin, stated that the protocol aims to "make Bitcoin the settlement layer for the global asset market without the need for bridging, custody, or wrapping assets." The platform is built on the BitScaler Layer 3 network, utilizing a structure similar to the Lightning Network, operating with a validator coalition as the central node and liquidity providers as radial nodes.

According to PRNewswire, Swiss fintech company Mt Pelerin has announced the launch of a personal cryptocurrency IBAN service. This service allows users to convert self-custody wallets into universal accounts, enabling seamless fund transfers between blockchain and traditional banking networks.Users can create personal IBANs in euros or Swiss francs linked to their crypto wallets, supporting the receipt of bank transfers that are directly converted into cryptocurrency deposited into the wallet, as well as sending bank transfers to anyone using the cryptocurrency in their wallet. These payments appear identical to standard bank transfers, while cryptocurrency settlements occur seamlessly in the background. The service is open to users worldwide (except for a list of excluded countries), with IBANs provided free of charge, free conversion between fiat currency and ZCHF stablecoin, and standard rates applied for conversions of other cryptocurrencies. The service supports over 30 cryptocurrencies across 15 chains.

According to the official blog of the Ethereum Foundation, the Ethereum Foundation's Account Abstraction team has officially proposed the "Ethereum Interop Layer" (EIL) solution, aimed at making all layer two networks feel like a single unified Ethereum chain.This solution is built on the ERC-4337 account abstraction standard and the principle of trustless declarations, allowing users to complete cross-chain transactions with a single signature, without adding new trust assumptions. Users can initiate and settle cross-layer operations directly from their wallets, without relying on relayers or solvers. EIL aims to address the current fragmentation issues of layer two networks, including the need for users to manage token positions across multiple chains, complex cross-chain transfer processes, and reliance on third-party bridging services.With this solution, users only need to select assets and addresses in their wallets and click send; the wallet will automatically handle inter-chain routing and asset delivery. The team stated that EIL maintains Ethereum's core values: self-custody, censorship resistance, privacy protection, and verifiability, shifting logic onto the chain and user wallets, removing the reliance on intermediaries.

Official news, Circle announced the launch of a new interoperability infrastructure, xReserve, aimed at helping blockchain teams deploy USDC collateralized stablecoins that are fully interoperable with native USDC.xReserve is built on Circle's CCTP (Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol) and Gateway, enabling value transfer through the xReserve attestation service without relying on third-party bridging services. Circle announced partnerships with leading blockchain projects Canton and Stacks, which will integrate xReserve in the coming weeks and launch their respective USDC collateralized stablecoins to support specific use cases within their ecosystems. The technology is designed to pave the way for a multi-chain future by eliminating liquidity fragmentation and minimizing trust assumptions, and it is architected to allow for future support of other digital assets like EURC.

According to The Block, Singapore's DBS Bank and JPMorgan's Kinexys are developing an interoperability framework aimed at enabling tokenized deposit transfers between the blockchain ecosystems of the two institutions. This framework will allow customers to conduct real-time transactions around the clock between public and permissioned blockchain networks, breaking down barriers traditionally caused by limited interoperability and security risks.Reportedly, customers using the JPM deposit token built on the Ethereum Layer 2 Base will be able to interact with DBS's token services running on a permissioned blockchain. This collaboration is part of a global trend among financial institutions towards tokenization, with recent announcements from BNY Mellon and major UK banks including Barclays, Lloyds, and HSBC launching similar projects.According to the BIS 2024 report, nearly one-third of surveyed jurisdictions' commercial banks have launched, piloted, or researched tokenized deposits.

ChainCatcher news, according to official sources, BTTC 2.0 is about to be officially released.This upgrade adopts a revolutionary three-layer architecture design, completely breaking the information silos between blockchains through innovative technical solutions, achieving secure and seamless synchronization of assets and states. This technological breakthrough will enhance cross-chain interoperability, promote the large-scale adoption of Web3 applications, and provide developers and users with a more efficient and secure cross-chain experience.More technical details will be disclosed soon.

ChainCatcher news, the DA layer interoperability protocol Sunrise has completed a $3 million seed round financing, with participation from Decima, Animoca Brands Japan, Hyperithm, Cogitent Ventures, MZ Web3 Fund, V3V Ventures, Connectico Capital, MH Ventures, and others. The new funds are intended to support its integration of data availability layer and liquidity center functions into a single platform supported by Proof-of-Liquidity for liquidity sharing.