Circle has launched a unified cross-chain infrastructure that enables businesses to access USDC balances across multiple blockchains.

An Aug. 19 announcement labeled the new product as Gateway, a system that addresses liquidity fragmentation issues that force companies to pre-position funds across chains and manage complex rebalancing operations.

Gateway combines smart contract infrastructure with an off-chain attestation service to create a single USDC balance accessible on Arbitrum, Avalanche, Base, Ethereum, OP Mainnet, Polygon PoS, and Unichain.

Additional chains, including Circle’s Arc, will receive support in future releases.

The platform targets payment service providers, exchanges, custodians, digital wallets, and DeFi trading firms that require efficient cross-chain USDC management without operational overhead.

Gateway maintains non-custodial design principles, ensuring depositor control over USDC holdings at all times.

Fund access requires both user signatures and Gateway attestations, preventing unauthorized movements or burns. The system includes trustless withdrawal mechanisms allowing users to recover funds after seven days if the Gateway API becomes unavailable.

Unified UX for financial infrastructure

The system operates through a three-step process beginning with USDC deposits into Gateway Wallet contracts on any supported blockchain.

After deposit finalization, Gateway credits the unified balance and instantly makes funds accessible across all supported chains regardless of the original deposit location.

Users initiate transfers by signing burn intents, which developers submit to the Gateway API for verification and attestation generation.

Once users sign burn intents, corresponding USDC mints execute on destination chains within the subsequent block, providing single-chain experience speeds for cross-chain value transfers.

Among the use cases are payment service providers reducing working capital requirements while exchanges eliminate rebalancing delays.

Additionally, digital wallets display unified USDC balances, and DeFi trading firms deploy capital more efficiently across chains without pre-positioning funds.

Gateway represents Circle’s latest initiative to enhance stablecoin utility following several strategic moves this year.

The company introduced its Refund Protocol in April, establishing a non-custodial dispute resolution system for stablecoin transactions without centralized intermediaries.

Circle also recently announced Arc, its enterprise-focused layer-1 blockchain scheduled for public testnet between September and December 2025.

Arc will serve as high-performance infrastructure for stablecoin payments, foreign exchange, and capital markets applications while supporting USDC as its default gas token and offering sub-second settlement finality.

Mentioned in this article

What you need to know

• Google Maps is testing emoji reactions for images in business listings.
• Available emojis include heart, pray, fire, tongue-out, and a mind-blown option.
• Tapping an emoji triggers a small animation, but reactions don’t yet appear on images.

Google Maps seems to be testing a new feature that lets users react to images in a listing, similar to how you can currently react to messages in Google Messages.

Currently in Google Maps, when you open a listing you see the listing’s name, options like call and directions at the top, followed by images. You can swipe through the carousel of images and video or look for more in the Reviews section, but there’s no way to react or leave feedback to an image. Google now seems to be testing that.

On my Pixel 9 Pro, opening a listing shows a new “Press and hold to react” overlay on images with reactions above them. Pressing and holding an image shows five reactions above it, which include heart, pray, fire, a side tongue emoji (probably to react to an image of a restaurant), and a mind-blown emoji.

Photo reactions are coming to Google Maps

Tapping an emoji triggers an animation. For example, hitting the heart icon shows a big-sized heart that swirls across the screen. Moreover, when you first leave a reaction to an image, a dialog box informs the user that these emojis will be shared with Google and shown publicly.

However, on my device, tapping an emoji does nothing to the image, and there’s no way to tell if you’ve reacted (unless you tap-and-hold it again), as nothing shows up in the UI.

In Google Messages, if you react to a message, the emoji shows up below it, but emojis don’t appear in Google Maps for now. It’s also worth noting that these are the only five emojis available, and there’s no way currently to add others.

There’s no official word on what the feature is meant to achieve, but Google likely sees reactions as a quick way to boost engagement on Maps listings. The feature would make it easier for users to quickly share feedback on photos without leaving full reviews.

The feature doesn’t appear to be rolling out widely just yet, as I could spot it working only on my Google Pixel 9 Pro and Oppo Find N5, and not on any other Android devices or iPhone. However, since the feature has been spotted, it looks like it could roll out anytime soon.