Research & Architecture: CCTP on Stellar integration design for VolunChain

[grantfox-development]

Overview

Design and document the integration architecture for Circle's Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol (CCTP) on Stellar (Soroban) into the VolunChain backend. This lays the foundation for the remaining CCTP implementation issues.

Background

CCTP enables native USDC burning on a source chain and minting on a destination chain without wrapped tokens. Stellar supports CCTP via Soroban smart contracts. VolunChain can leverage this to allow organizations to fund rewarded projects with USDC across chains (e.g., Ethereum → Stellar).

Tasks

• Research Circle's CCTP Stellar Soroban contract addresses (mainnet & testnet)
• Map out the full burn → attest → mint message flow
• Define the domain models: CCTPTransfer, CCTPMessage, CCTPAttestation
• Design the database schema for tracking cross-chain transfer state
• Document which external APIs are needed (Circle Attestation API, Stellar Horizon/RPC)
• Define error states and retry strategies
• Produce an architecture diagram and ADR (Architecture Decision Record)

Acceptance Criteria

• ADR document committed to the repo under docs/adr/
• Domain interfaces defined in TypeScript and reviewed by the team
• Database migration schema drafted
• External dependency list finalized (Circle API, Stellar RPC endpoint)