Stellar and Ethereum link via VIA Labs cross-chain infrastructure

The deployment allows developers to move assets and coordinate contract operations between the two ecosystems. VIA Labs utilizes a burn-and-mint mechanism for its reference implementation, which handles the technical disparity between Stellar’s seven decimal places and Ethereum’s 18. According to the company, transfers typically complete within one to three minutes, depending on validator polling speeds.

While users must still pay standard network transaction fees in XLM or Ethereum gas, VIA Labs is waiving its own protocol fees during the initial launch phase. To ensure security, the infrastructure relies on audited VG1 smart contracts and a system of validators and relayers that verify cross-chain messages before execution. The protocol is specifically designed for contract-to-contract communication, requiring developers to integrate the gateway directly into their decentralized applications rather than relying on direct wallet-to-wallet transfers.

This infrastructure expansion aligns with a broader push toward tokenization on Stellar. The network recently attracted interest from Securitize, which intends to support Stellar for managing regulated financial assets, alongside ongoing discussions regarding DTCC’s planned integration for tokenized securities. Unlike previous efforts focused solely on stablecoin liquidity, such as the LayerZero-backed USDT0 integration, the VIA Labs connection provides a general-purpose framework for custom cross-chain logic.