Canonical bridge
native bridgecanonical bridging
An issuer- or chain-operated bridge that produces the version of an asset the issuer treats as its native off-chain representation.
For stablecoins, canonical bridging matters because the issuer typically only honours redemption on its canonical chain (e.g., Circle's CCTP (Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol) for USDC). Wrapped variants on bridges Circle has not blessed are not redeemable directly and therefore carry an additional bridge-credit layer of risk.
Related terms
- CCTP (Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol)Circle's burn-and-mint protocol for moving native USDC between supported chains without third-party bridges.
- BridgeA protocol that lets assets move between chains, usually by lock-and-mint, burn-and-mint, or liquidity-network designs.
- Wrapped tokenA token that represents another asset on a different chain or in a different standard, redeemable 1:1.