Circle, the issuer of USD Coin has officially launched the USDC stablecoin on the Polkadot network.
The leading digital financial services company Circle announced the launch of USD Coin (USDC) on the Polkadot Asset Hub earlier today. This expansion comes as Circle pushes to make the second-largest stablecoin by market cap available on more blockchain networks.
“Polkadot USDC is here! We’re excited to announce that USDC is now available natively on Polkadot Asset Hub for developers and users of the Polkadot ecosystem,” Circle wrote.
This positive development enables every parachain in Polkadot’s ecosystem to access USDC natively without the need for a bridge. Said differently, parachain developers can securely access Polkadot USDC from the Asset Hub via the so-called XCM to build.
Per the Tuesday update, businesses and institutions can equally access on/off-ramps for Polkadot USDC with the use of Circle Account and APIs. However, the update stressed that Circle accounts and APIs only support Polkadot USDC natively issued on Polkadot Asset Hub.
“Please do not attempt to deposit XCM-transferred USDC from a parachain other than Polkadot Asset Hub to your Circle Account, as it may not be recoverable and could result in a loss of funds,” the team warned.
This entails that users must transfer USD Coin from their Circle Account to an external Polkadot Asset Hub wallet address before using XCM. For the initiated, Polkadot Asset Hub is a common parachain that is designed for issuing, managing and transferring digital assets across the blockchain ecosystem.
USDC Continues To Expand
The latest expansion to Polkadot is yet another addition to the U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoin as USDC is now available natively on 14 blockchain networks. Other blockchain networks supporting USDC include Ethereum, Hedera, Avalanche, Stellar, Solana, Noble, Tron, Optimism, Near, Flow, Base, Algorand and Arbitrum network.
It bears noting that USD Coin is the second-largest stablecoin by market capitalization following TetherUSD (USDT). At press time, the fiat-backed stablecoin has a market value of over $25.9 billion with over $2.6 billion tokens traded in the past 24 hours.
Polkadot Team Reacts
In response to the strategic development, the Polkadot team noted that “the integration will not only boost liquidity but also allow easier institutional access to [its] ecosystem.”
The team further revealed that USD Coin has quickly gained adoption by various Polkadot parachains, including Centrifuge, HydraDX and Moonbeam Network amongst others.
Notably, Centrifuge has made USD Coin the native currency for its liquidity pools. Similarly, HydraDX co-founder Jakub Hydra noted that USDC’s launch on Polkadot would help reduce friction in user experience and ecosystem DAO operations.
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