Circle, the crypto platform backed by Goldman Sachs, on Friday announced that twelve new companies have added support to its USD Coin (USDC), a Stablecoin pegged to the US dollar. As reported by Circle, BitMart, Bit-Z, DDEX, FCoin, Gatecoin, Hanbitco, Hotbit, QCP Capital and SWFT Blockchain have involved themselves in the USDC network. The crypto platform added that the coin would soon be available on other exchanges, joining the more than 50 partners that have already enabled support for the stablecoin’s ecosystem, including Coinbase. Acting as a sort of safe haven where crypto traders can park their assets in volatile markets, USDC is an Ethereum-based ERC-20 coin, which makes it easy for wallets, exchanges and other smart contracts to interact with the token. Circle’s stablecoin is based on an open source fiat stablecoin framework developed and governed by the CENTRE project. And in a bid to accelerate adoption of its service to tokenize the buck, Circle said it would no longer charge fees from customers redeeming USDC into US Dollars, making it more attractive for crypto exchanges, protocols, platforms, applications, and wallets.
Tokenizing Fiat Currencies Continues
The topic of stablecoins is generating buzz in the crypto community these days. The major application for such assets has been as a mechanism for trading and hedging in global crypto capital markets. Claire Wells from Circle will discuss the phenomenon at the London Summit 2018. She will be joining a panel that will discuss one of the biggest questions of the cryptocurrency industry - are tokens securities? She will be joined by industry professionals Aleks Nowak from BlockEx, and Xiao (Xiao) Chen, founder of AS Corporate Advisory.
Circle’s stablecoin goes head-to-head with other stablecoins such as Gemini Dollar, Paxos Standard, and Tether (USDT). The latter is a USD-backed stablecoin which is used as a proxy for physical money on many cryptocurrency exchanges. However, Circle’s New York BitLicense will offer a fully audited alternative, in contrast to Tether which has been the subject of controversy and regulatory scrutiny due to lingering questions about its cash reserves.
