Union Labs, the sovereign interoperability layer, has teamed up with Canto, a permissionless general-purpose Layer-1 blockchain for DeFi, for general message passing and assets transfers from Ethereum, Cosmos Hub, and other IBC-enabled chains to Canto.

Through the partnership, Union will extend IBC capabilities to Canto and enable liquidity flow in and out of Canto. By integrating with Union, Canto users will not only have immediate access to native assets of the IBC-enabled chains, but also those that are exclusively transported by Union across the modular ecosystem. These include assets generated by the rollups built on Celestia and Movement, as well as native USDC issued by Noble. Last but not least, Union’s partnerships with EVM-compatible L2s such as Scroll will give immediate access to Ethereum tokens issued and used in those execution environments.

Anon762549 from the Canto Growth Collective said: “Canto is thrilled to announce its partnership with the talented team and outstanding platform at Union. This collaboration brings three major enhancements to the Canto ecosystem:

1. Expanded interoperability options for our users, complementing our existing integration with LayerZero;
2. New pathways to increase liquidity, attract users, and boost activity, especially from the Cosmos and Ethereum networks, directly into Canto;
3. Access to a broader range of assets, including those on rollups built on Celestia and Movement, and the native issuance of USDC on Noble.”

Canto differentiates itself within the DeFi ecosystem by launching core primitives—such as decentralized exchanges, lending markets, and units of account—as Free Public Infrastructure (FPI), avoiding the rent-seeking model of issuing governance tokens. Contrary to the traditional approach where DeFi projects extract value through tokens, Canto ensures its services, like its ungoverned decentralized exchange, remain free and unmodifiable, aiming to prevent predatory evolution and offer perpetual, rent-free utility to its users. Given Canto’s commitment to true decentralization and trustlessness, a collaboration between two parties becomes not just strategic but also ideological.

Union Labs’ Co-Founder, Karel Kubat added: “This partnership signifies an increase in IBC’s dominance across ecosystems, and allows us to demonstrate the full potential of our interoperability solutions while contributing to the EVM and IBC enabled chains that prioritize sovereignty and open access. Union will enable users to transfer a broader range of assets to Canto, which will ultimately contribute to its ecosystem growth.”

The engineering teams at Union and Canto will be collaborating in the coming weeks, anticipating a smooth integration given both projects’ use of the latest version of the Cosmos SDK.

About Union
Union Labs is the sovereign interoperability layer. Union’s trustless bridge uses zero-knowledge proofs to connect any appchains, L1s, and L2s without depending on trusted third parties, oracles, multi-signatures, or MPC. Union Labs is building ZK solutions that remedy the cost and security issues plaguing the industry to unlock a horizontally-scaled future, where thousands of chains can permissionlessly connect, communicate, and prosper.

About Canto
Canto strives to establish the premier execution layer for original work, anchored in a user and developer-focused ecosystem, epitomized by our Core Tenets: Free Public Infrastructure (FPI), Contract Secured Revenue (CSR), and a decentralized network of contributors, among others