Goldman-Sachs-backed platform Circle recently announced that five new companies have added support to its USD Coin (USDC), a Stablecoin pegged to the US dollar. In total, this brings the number of partners that have enabled the stablecoin ecosystem to more than 60 exchanges, wallets, platforms, apps, and service providers.
As reported by Circle, Airswap, BlockMyTalent, Opensea, Atomic Wallet and Abacus Protocol have involved themselves in the USDC network, joining other major supporters, 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.
Most recently, Binance enabled support for USDC deposits with trading on the stablecoin’s pairs, against Bitcoin and Binance’s token BNB, already started on November 17.
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.
What’s Next On The Horizon?
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.
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.
