Sergey Gorbunov is a cryptographer who co-founded Interop Labs, the initial developer of the Axelar network, and ran it as CEO. In December 2025 Circle signed to acquire his team and its proprietary IP, and its filing puts the technology purchase at $10.0 million. The deal left out AXL, Axelar's token, worth 6.78 times that at its mid-October 2026 close.
If you hold AXL, what Circle left out matters more than what it took. Circle's own post draws that line, keeping the network, its foundation and the token outside the deal. AXL closed 13.89% lower on the day of the announcement and finished mid-October 2026 at $0.0543, which left it 60.87% below its close the day before the news.
Sergey Gorbunov at a Glance
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Item
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Details
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Role
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Cryptographer, co-founder and CEO of Interop Labs
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Education
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MIT PhD, June 2015, in lattice cryptography
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Earlier work
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Algorand founding team, Waterloo professor on leave
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The Circle deal
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December 2025, the team and IP only, $10.0M booked
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AXL at the mid-October 2026 close
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$0.0543 on CMC, a $67.78M market value
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On Phemex
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AXL pairs delisted, CRCL futures listed
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Who Is Sergey Gorbunov?
Sergey Gorbunov is a cryptographer who carried lattice-based research from MIT into blockchain infrastructure, and his own site sums him up as a founder and investor in infrastructure.
Gorbunov's best-known project is Axelar, a network that passes messages and token transfers between blockchains, the job laid out in Phemex's guide to what cross-chain bridges are and their risks. Gorbunov's site says he took Axelar from research to its public network launch.
Away from Axelar, Gorbunov lists stakes in five early-stage companies. They include the key-management firm Cubist and P-1 AI, which is building an AI engineer for the physical world, and the rest of his list runs from photonics to fusion.
Sergey Gorbunov's Career and Education
Gorbunov earned his PhD at MIT in June 2015 with a thesis titled "Cryptographic Tools for the Cloud", supervised by Vinod Vaikuntanathan. It built lattice-based schemes for three cloud problems, from sharing data with authorised readers to proving that an outsourced computation ran correctly. His own site credits the thesis with a Sprowls Award for the best computer science thesis.
One of its schemes lets a cloud server run any computation on signed data and hand back a short proof that anyone can check. Checking work done by a party you don't trust is close to the problem a cross-chain network faces each time it relays a message from another chain.
Gorbunov was part of Algorand's founding team, and his site says he led its cryptography team. If you want the project's side of that story, Phemex's explainer on what Algorand (ALGO) is and how it was created covers it.
At the University of Waterloo, Gorbunov is an associate professor at the Cheriton School of Computer Science, on leave according to his site.
The school says he co-founded Interop Labs in 2021 and also served as its CEO. Under Gorbunov the company built the Axelar stack, which the same page describes as an interoperability layer for Web3.
In February 2025 Interop Labs pledged US$1 million to Waterloo to support GENESIS, a new AI and blockchain research lab with 12 PhD fellowships. Gorbunov, then CEO, said he believed "we're at the beginnings of what will be known as a complete rewrite of modern computer systems."
What Happened to Axelar?
Axelar kept running, and Circle signed a deal to take on the team that built it.
In an announcement dated 15 December 2025, Circle said it had signed to acquire the Interop Labs team and its proprietary IP. The post says "the Axelar Network, Foundation and the AXL token will continue to operate independently under community governance".
Circle named Common Prefix, another Axelar contributor, to take over Interop Labs' activities. Waterloo's account adds that Common Prefix will take a leading role in the Axelar developer community.
Circle wants Gorbunov's team to speed up Circle's Arc blockchain and its CCTP transfer protocol. Gorbunov's line in the post was "Together, we will lay the groundwork for the next era of crosschain finance". Circle expected the deal to close in early 2026.
Circle's first-quarter 2026 report, filed in May 2026, put a number on the technology. Its intangible-assets note records technology acquired "from Interop Labs Inc. and Rapidx Labs, Inc. in January 2026 for total consideration of $10.0 million" and amortized over two years. The second-quarter report, filed in August 2026, repeats that sentence word for word.
That $10.0 million covers two sellers, and the note gives one total. Rapidx Labs is the second, and the note says nothing more about it. The token Circle left out was bigger on paper. AXL's mid-October 2026 close gave it a CoinMarketCap market value of about $67.78 million, 6.78 times that sum. Circle's books value the code at a fraction of what the market assigns the token.
Method: the multiple divides AXL's CoinMarketCap market value at the mid-October 2026 close by the $10.0 million in Circle's note, and CoinGecko's figures give 6.79 times. The moves compare CoinMarketCap daily closes of $0.1387 the day before the announcement, $0.1195 on the day and $0.0543 in mid-October 2026.
What Is Axelar?
Axelar is the cross-chain network Gorbunov co-founded, and it lets blockchains pass messages and move tokens between them. Circle's post calls it one of the most advanced frameworks for secure crosschain messaging and token transfer. If you want the mechanics, Phemex's explainer on what Axelar is walks through how the network works, and our Axelar (AXL) Price Prediction 2026-2030 page covers the token's price outlook.
How to Trade Around Axelar on Phemex
If you came here for AXL itself, Phemex delisted both of its AXL pairs, the spot pair and the perpetual. That leaves no live AXL market to trade on Phemex.
Phemex does list the buyer. Circle Internet Group trades on Phemex as the CRCL perpetual, listed since February 2026 with leverage of up to 10x. It closed its mid-October 2026 bar at 84.38 USDT, up 3.50% on the day.
Phemex's Circle Internet Group (CRCL) and the stablecoin infrastructure thesis lays out the stablecoin business behind that stock.
CRCL moves with Circle's whole business, so a position in it is a view on the company that signed for Gorbunov's team, and AXL's price plays no part in it. Futures use leverage, and a leveraged position is closed automatically if losses reach its margin.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Sergey Gorbunov?
Sergey Gorbunov is an MIT-trained cryptographer who co-founded Interop Labs, the company behind the Axelar network, and served as its CEO. Gorbunov was on Algorand's founding team and is an associate professor at the University of Waterloo, on leave.
Who founded Axelar?
Waterloo's 2025 pledge announcement names Sergey Gorbunov as a co-founder of the Axelar protocol. The university also says Gorbunov co-founded Interop Labs, the network's initial developer, in 2021 and served as its CEO.
Was Axelar acquired by Circle?
No. In December 2025 Circle signed to acquire the Interop Labs team and its proprietary IP, and its announcement says the Axelar Network, its foundation and the AXL token continue independently under community governance.
Is Axelar dead?
Circle and the University of Waterloo both describe the Axelar Network, the AXL token and its foundation as independent and community governed after the deal. AXL still traded in mid-October 2026, when its close gave it a market value of about $67.78 million.
What is Sergey Gorbunov's link to Circle?
Gorbunov ran Interop Labs when Circle signed in December 2025 to acquire its team and proprietary IP. His own site links to Circle's announcement of the deal and lists no Circle job title for him.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and is not financial advice. Cryptocurrency trading involves substantial risk. Always do your own research before making investment decisions.
