The FinTech startup and stablecoin issuer Circle says it will support USD Coin (USDC) on the decentralized finance network Hedera.
“With more than $30 billion USDC in circulation as of October 2021, USDC is the world’s fastest-growing dollar digital currency,” the Boston-based company said in a news release on Monday (Oct. 18). “USDC on Hedera is now available to use within the Circle account, Circle’s global financial account for digital currency where customers can deposit, withdraw and send USDC on the Hedera network and use Hedera for USDC payment and settlement transactions.”
In addition, Circle says its suite of developer APIs has been updated to support USDC on Hedera. The company says this aligns with the newly formed HBAR foundation, designed to give entrepreneurs the funding they need — in this case, $2.5 billion for ecosystem grants — to build and implement new Hedera network applications.
“Support for USDC on the Hedera network means more people can take advantage of dollar digital currencies,” said Jeremy Allaire, CEO and co-founder of Circle. “With Hedera, enterprises and financial institutions can access deep liquidity across countries and platforms, making USDC on Hedera an optimal asset for cross-border transactions and trades of all kinds.”
In addition to Hedera, Circle now supports USDC across the Ethereum, Algorand, Solana, Stellar and TRON blockchains, with plans to add more.
Read more: With $27B in Market Value, Circle CEO Says USDC Stablecoin Is Too Big to Ignore
This news comes on the heels of a busy few months for Circle, which has announced plans to go public via a special-purpose acquisition company, as well as plans to become a national digital currency bank.
In an interview with PYMNTS’ Karen Webster in September, Allaire said that since USDC launched in 2018, the long-range goal was the creation of a “systemically, important scaled infrastructure — including a payment infrastructure — for a dollar digital currency in the global financial system.”
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