Circle is taking its cross-chain balance service beyond USDC. The company announced on October 23 that Gateway now supports its wrapped Bitcoin token, cirBTC, and euro stablecoin EURC, giving developers a common interface for moving three different assets.
TL;DR: Gateway now supports cirBTC and EURC alongside USDC, with separate balances and different network routes. Its advertised speed applies after deposits have finalized.
The Euro And Bitcoin Routes Differ
The expansion has a narrower footprint for bitcoin than for euros. Circle’s asset-support documentation lists cirBTC on Arc and Ethereum. EURC is supported on Arc, Avalanche, Base, Ethereum, Solana and World Chain. Availability of a token elsewhere does not automatically make that network a Gateway route.
Each asset retains its own balance. Depositing EURC creates access to EURC across its supported networks; it does not fund a cirBTC withdrawal or convert euros into dollars. Applications still need a separate exchange operation when the underlying asset changes.
That distinction matters for the kinds of businesses the service could help. A payments firm serving euro customers on several networks could, in principle, reduce the amount of EURC it parks in separate places. The design simplifies where a balance can be used while leaving currency exposure and conversion decisions with the business.
The Speed Claim Starts After Finality
Circle advertises cross-chain access in less than 500 milliseconds once a balance has been established. That condition excludes the time needed for a fresh deposit to reach finality on its source network. A customer moving funds into Gateway for the first time therefore faces a different timing calculation from an application spending an existing balance.
The Gateway documentation describes deposits held in noncustodial GatewayWallet escrow contracts. An authorized request then allows the same asset to be minted on a supported destination chain. Circle also provides a withdrawal path that does not depend on its API, although that route carries a seven-day delay. Control of funds and immediate access to funds are separate considerations.
The new assets also work with Circle’s Nanopayments system, which groups off-chain payments for settlement in batches. Support has an additional boundary here: nanopayments involving assets other than USDC are limited to Ethereum Virtual Machine networks. EURC’s Gateway availability on Solana should not be read as EURC Nanopayments support there.
Circle says it is waiving Gateway fees for cirBTC and EURC on Arc at launch. Developers still need to assess the full transaction path, including deposits, withdrawals and settlement. Eliminating a gas charge for each individual payment does not eliminate the cost of every batch or every interaction with a smart contract.
For prospective users, the useful test is concrete: whether the required asset, destination network and payment method all appear in the supported combination. A unified interface makes those decisions easier to implement, but the route matrix still determines what an application can deliver.
Written by the News Desk and edited by Samuel Rae.