Drift is pleased to be one of the first Solana partners to integrate Circle’s Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol (CCTP).

Traders can now quickly and securely transport USDC from Arbitrum, Base, and Ethereum to Drift as collateral for trading.

What is Circle’s CCTP?

Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol (CCTP) is a permissionless on-chain utility that facilitates secure transfers of USDC between blockchains via native burning and minting.

CCTP tackles liquidity fragmentation issues and addresses user experience issues caused by unofficial, bridged forms of USDC. This means traders can engage in cross-chain trading activities in a more secure and capital-efficient way.

Circle’s CCTP simplifies cross-chain transfers, enhances security, and unlocks new opportunities in the market.

How Does It Work?

Given USDC's broad support across various blockchains, CCTP serves to connect and unify liquidity across disparate ecosystems with Drift acting as a facilitator.

Here’s how it works:

1. Initiate a transfer on Drift by specifying the USDC amount and source chain (e.g. Arbitrum, Ethereum, Base)
2. Drift will facilitate the burning of USDC on the specified source chain
3. Circle detects this burn event and provides authorization to mint the same amount of USDC on the destination chain (e.g. Solana)
4. The newly minted USDC is  transferred to your wallet, ready to be deposited onto Drift as collateral

For more technical details, dive in here

Using Circle CCTP: A Step-by-Step Guide

Step 1: Open the Wallet Menu

After you’ve connected your wallet, click on the wallet button in the top right to reveal the full menu.

You'll want to navigate to the "Bridge" tab and select the Circle CCTP option.

Step 2: Enter the transfer details

Select the source chain you’d like to transfer your USDC from and the amount to transfer.

Step 3: Connect Your Wallet and Approve the Transactions

For the source chain, you’ll be able to connect supported wallets such as MetaMask and Coinbase Wallet.

After connecting, approve the spending limits for USDC and initiate the transfer.

Note: you can come back to this page to check on the status of the transfer but it is recommended that you save the transaction link as a reference.

Step 4: Receive your funds

After the transfer is complete you can click Receive to finalize the process and deposit to Drift to start trading!

Ready to try out CCTP today?

Visit https://app.drift.trade to begin securely transferring USDC today!

Note: This option only facilitates the transfer of USDC and does not include gas drop off (SOL). If you’d like to bridge other assets, please refer to Drift’s bridging guides here.

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