Stellar Bridges & Cross-Chain

Circle CCTP (Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol)

Circle's Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol (CCTP), live on Stellar since May 2026. Moves native USDC between Stellar and 23+ chains (Ethereum, Solana, Base, Arbitrum, Optimism) via a 1:1 burn-and-mint model rather than wrapped or locked assets, settling in seconds. CCTP is bridging INFRASTRUCTURE, not a user-facing bridge: there is no Circle-hosted bridge app — builders integrate it (and pass execution metadata via Hooks), and end-users move USDC through bridges built on it, e.g. Rozo's Intent Bridge on Stellar.

Squid Router

Cross-chain swap and bridge aggregator (built on Axelar) that went live for Stellar at the Axelar-Stellar integration launch on Feb 16, 2026. Confirmed live and operational at launch, it routes liquidity and bridges assets such as XLM into/out of Stellar across connected chains. Source: Axelar Network integrates Stellar announcement (Feb 2026).

Stronghold

Stronghold builds virtual payment-network infrastructure for instant settlement and interoperability between legacy and on-chain rails. It operates a cross-chain bridge for its SHx token between Stellar and Ethereum, using Axelar's cross-chain protocol (and Squid Router) to move assets while maintaining a unified 1:1 token supply across both chains.

Helix

Institutional staking infrastructure by Helix Labs. The protocol is currently live only on Canton — Stellar integration is on the roadmap, not launched. Helix Labs separately operates validator infrastructure across major L1 ecosystems.

BIM Exchange

BIM Exchange is a DeFi infrastructure platform focused on improving on-chain execution efficiency for swaps, bridges, and yield strategies. The platform acts as an aggregation layer across multiple routing and liquidity solutions. For swaps and bridges, transactions are automatically split and routed across different sources to optimize execution quality, with the objective of reducing slippage, improving pricing, and increasing reliability. BIM Exchange also offers automated staking and yield strategies, based on auto-compounding mechanisms inspired by existing vault models and adapted to its own architecture. Rewards are reinvested programmatically, allowing users to participate in yield generation without requiring active position management.