USDC, The $ 6 Billion Stablecoin, has finally launched into the Stellar ecosystem.
Visa previously announced that the company will connect its global payments network to the USDC.
Using USDC on the Stellar blockchain is believed to transact faster and cheaper than on Ethereum.
The Stellar Development Foundation (SDF) and Circle have revealed that the US Dollar (USDC) asset is indeed on the Stellar Network.
Circle, the leading fintech company behind USDC’s development , is often cited as a pro-regulation organization. In a blog post on Tuesday , February 2 , the foundation explained that users can access USDC through Stellar’s decentralized exchange and five wallets built into Stellar.
The USDC can be negotiated with six pairs of stablecoins on the entire ecosystem of 9000 assets of Stellar . As for the developers, they have the possibility of accepting payments without limits.
They can also issue programmable payments, create markets, and later receive a return on top of their balance through a special free API service provided by Circle.
Credit card giant accelerated the launch of USDC
The foundation and the Center Consortium announced Stellar as the official USDC chain in October 2020. This should reduce stablecoin’s reliance on the Ethereum blockchain .
The number of USDC tokens in circulation has doubled since the credit card company Visa partnered with Circle to integrate USDC into its payment network of 60 million merchants.
Notably, over the past year, the USDC’s market capitalization has jumped over 1,000% . That’s an increase of more than ten times. Meanwhile, the total number of operations on the Stellar network has exceeded 1.5 billion. And last year, it saw 104% year-over-year growth, according to the announcement.
Speaking to Forbes , Denelle Dixon of the Stellar Development Foundation said that Stellar needs a strong and stable asset:
„We want to make cross-border payments quickly, this will help provide scale.“
A new age
The SDF also revealed that ecosystem companies FinClusive, Stably and JST will provide liquidity and on / off ramps. In turn, six additional platforms, including Wyre, will connect USDC to their payment transactions. The Stellar Development Foundation recently invested $ 5 million in Wyre.
Commenting on these collaborations, Dixon said:
“This integration will be an engine of growth in the Stellar ecosystem towards achieving our mission of creating equitable access to the global financial system. It presents significant business opportunities for new and existing businesses to leverage the respective strengths of USDC and Stellar. “
Following his statement, Jeremy Allaire, President and CEO of Circle, pointed out that Stellar is creating „a new generation of financial applications :“
“Having a stable and transparent dollar, like USDC, in the marketplace and available in Circle’s API service suite for payments and treasury operations will help accelerate the pace and scale of these innovations.”