Circle officially adds native USDC on Aptos mainnet

Circle’s digital dollar, USD Coin, is now available natively on the layer-1 blockchain Aptos, empowering developers and users.

USDC (USDC) goes live natively on Aptos (APT) about two months after Circle announced that the stablecoin would be launching on the Move-based layer-1 blockchain. That initial update, which crypto.news reported in November 2024, also included the upcoming integration of Circle’s cross-chain transfer protocol.

In its latest announcement, the stablecoin issuer confirmed that both native USD Coin and the cross-chain transfer protocol are now live on Aptos. Native availability allows users and developers to directly use USD Coin without relying on cross-chain bridges.

This also enables financial institutions and the broader Aptos user community to leverage USD Coin liquidity across various applications, including decentralized finance, peer-to-peer payments, real-world assets, remittances, and gaming.

Aptos previously used a bridged version of USD Coin from LayerZero, circulated as lzUSDC. This form of the stablecoin was not issued by Circle but was bridged from Ethereum via the AptosBridge on LayerZero.

With native support now in place, bridge providers such as Stargate, which is built on LayerZero, will collaborate with the Aptos ecosystem to facilitate migration from lzUSDC to native USD Coin.

Circle’s cross-chain transfer protocol will allow interoperability providers to offer USD Coin transfers across different blockchains. This is similar to what the interoperability protocol Wormhole has implemented.

On Jan. 30, the platform announced that it had integrated Circle’s cross-chain transfer protocol on Aptos, allowing developers to enable native USD Coin transfers in their decentralized applications “with just 3 lines of code.”

Aptos-based protocols tapping into this functionality include Cellana Finance, Echelon Market, Meso, and Thala Labs, among others.