The stablecoin USD Coin (USDC) will soon be available on another 10 blockchains, which will add to the four on which this cryptocurrency already works.
Thus, Avalanche, Celo, Flow, Hedera, Kava, Nervos, Polkadot, Stacks, Tezos and Tron will be alternatives to Ethereum blockchains (the first on which USDC was developed in 2018), in addition to Algorand, Solana and Stellar, these three added in 2020.
The information comes from a statement that Centre— a firm that emerges from the partnership between the payment processing company Circle and the exchange Coinbase-released on its official site. So far, however, no details were given on the release date on each blockchain, although they hope to be able to give news “in the coming days”.
According to CoinMarketCap, at the time of closing of this note USDC is trading at exactly 1 USD (the variation in its price almost never exceeds the dollar cent) and the cryptocurrency has a market cap of $ 25 billion.
With this expansion, the largest in its history so far, the stablecoin would surpass in this section the leader of its category, Tether (USDT), which operates on eight blockchains. Although not yet close to the latter’s $ 63 billion cap, the market volume of Ethereum-based stablecoins is matching, according to delphi Digital data.
In a graph published by this consultant, you can see how USDC moved from just over 10% of this market in July 2020 to over 30% in June 2021. In that period, moreover, the dominant USDT lost ground with other stablecoins such as Binance USD (BUSD) and DAI (DAI).
Regarding the benefits of this news, the text published by the USDC developer argues that this expansion into other blockchains was planned from the origins of the cryptocurrency and will allow users to “take advantage of the speed, scalability and cost efficiency provided by the next generation of public blockchains.”
In addition, from Centre expressed that this will also help encourage the adoption of blockchain technology by individuals and companies. They also express that having this stablecoin in more blockchains will support interoperability between various payment infrastructures.
Stablecoins in the eye of regulators, but growing
The chairman of the Federal Reserve of Boston, Erin Rosengred, said at the opening of the Forum of Official Monetary and Financial Institutions on June 25 that the entity he’s closely following stablecoins as Tether. In their view, these cryptocurrencies represent “a challenge to financial stability,” as CriptoNoticias reported.
Meanwhile, Center and USDC continue on the path of expansion and development. A couple of months ago, Circle had announced a partnership with Signature Bank for the deposit of billions of dollars that would function as a backup of the stablecoin, one of the basic premises to ensure its almost zero volatility. At the time, in addition, the company detailed that the circulation of digital dollars was growing at a rate of USD 300 million net per week.