Fragmentation has become a toll road, not just UX debt: Chainlink’s CCIP directory lists 76 mainnet networks and 260 tokens, while Circle’s CCTP spans 27 domains and still excludes USDC on BNB Smart Chain. The market response is chain abstraction, OFTs, burn-and-mint USDC, and shared sequencers, but that swaps validator-set risk for issuer, attester, oracle, DVN, and executor risk. Circle’s Gateway proves the trade: one USDC balance across 13 mainnet chains, but Ethereum/Base/OP deposits still wait about 65 Ethereum blocks, 13 to 19 minutes.

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