Circle Launches USDC on Avalanche to Drive DeFi Adoption

Circle continues to expand the integration of the USDC stablecoin across different blockchain networks, with the company recently launching the second-largest stablecoin by market capitalization on Avalanche. 

Circle’s USDC on Avalanche

Circle announced the news via a press release on Tuesday (Dec. 14, 2021). USDC is one of the fastest-growing stablecoins, which has recorded the largest number of decentralized finance (DeFi) users as at December 2021. The dollar-backed digital currency currently has over $40 billion worth of tokens in circulation.

Avalanche is compatible with the Ethereum smart contract standard, and boasts of eco-friendly, net-zero digital transactions. According to the announcement, the USDC support will be available on the Avalanche C-Chain. 

With the integration, customers can send and receive payments, deposit, withdraw, and also settle transactions with USDC on Avalanche. Meanwhile, having USDC directly on the blockchain network, could increase DeFi adoption.

USDC is the second stablecoin to be integrated on the Avalanche blockchain network. Back in November, Tether’s USDT, the largest stablecoin by market capitalization, was also supported on Avalanche. 

Commenting on the latest development, Circle’s co-founder and CEO, Jeremy Allaire, said.

“Support for USDC on Avalanche comes at an exciting and pivotal moment for the growing, multi-billion dollar DeFi market. With USDC as the leading dollar digital currency for the decentralized economy, this integration will be instrumental for developers and communities looking to participate in one of the fastest, organically growing ecosystems in crypto.”

Avalanche becomes the seventh blockchain partner to integrate USDC. The President of Ava Labs, John Wu, made a statement about the partnership, saying:

“A fundamental restructuring of legacy payments and financial infrastructure is not only warranted, but overdue. Together, Avalanche and Circle will pioneer solutions to these systemic challenges.”

As reported by BTCManager in October the dollar-pegged stablecoin was supported on the Hedera Hashgraph network. Circle has also deployed USDC on other blockchains such as Solana, Ethereum, Tron, Algorand, and Stellar.

Outside of blockchain networks, Circle also collaborated with global payments giant Mastercard, to facilitate conversion from cryptocurrency to via USDC. Meanwhile, the USDC issuer Circle, was issued a subpoena by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). While the company did give any details, Circle said that it was going to cooperate with the securities agency.