Common Prefix became lead steward of Axelar in December 2025 after Interop Labs was acquired by Circle. The network is refocusing on key institutional finance ecosystems: Stellar, Hedera, Solana. Recent deliverables include a new direct user interface and upcoming unified intents protocol and RFQ API for seamless cross-chain transfers.
Common Prefix, a blockchain research firm founded by Dionysis Zindros, took over as steward of Axelar following the December 2025 acquisition of Interop Labs by Circle. The transition marked the culmination of a five-year collaboration that began with auditing Axelar's smart contracts in 2021. In the first half of 2026, Common Prefix focused on understanding the full Axelar stack while establishing operational processes for running a production network. The team expanded significantly across engineering, product, design, marketing, and business development. Major integrations went live: Stellar and Hedera in February 2026, and Solana on mainnet in June. Axelar's strategy now emphasizes institutional onchain finance use cases rather than pursuing millions of interconnected chains. In May 2026, the network discontinued Flow, Berachain, and Plume integrations after governance votes, prioritizing security and meaningful transaction volume. The team also launched a new interface giving users direct access to Axelar's interoperability services and is developing a new intents protocol and unified RFQ API to simplify cross-chain asset movement across multiple transfer methods.
