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The USDC Stablecoin Will Soon Expand Its Reach To 10 More Networks

The second biggest stablecoin by market capitalization is already a multi-blockchain project. Soon, though, USDC will live almost everywhere. According to Coindesk, it will soon be available in, “Avalanche, Celo, Flow, Hedera, Kava, Nervos, Polkadot, Stacks, Tezos, and Tron.” That will bring the total to 14; since USDC is already functional in Ethereum, Algorand, Stellar, and Solana.

The biggest stablecoin, Tether or USDT, is only available in 8 of those. Currently, the most used stablecoin is Tron’s version of USDT. 

Related Reading | Is USDC’s Billion Dollar Growth A Sign Crypto Smart Money Is Ditching Tether?

With that in mind, CENTRE said:

“We anticipate that USDC on these blockchain platforms and multichain protocols will further accelerate the use of the world’s fastest growing digital dollar currency.”

The consortium that runs USDC, CENTRE, is a joint venture between Coinbase and payments processor Circle. The information comes from, “a draft announcement from USDC administrator CENTRE obtained by CoinDesk.”

USDC market cap for 06/30/2016 - TradingView

USDC market capitalization | Source: TradingView.com

What Is USDC And How Does It Work?

For this, we have to go back to the academy. Coinzilla informs us:

USDC is one of the fastest-growing stablecoins pegged 1 to 1 to the US Dollar.

What is more remarkable is that Circle, the company that developed the stablecoin, is actually holding the amount of money required for backing the USDC in circulation. 

That’s definitely a shot at USDT. Tether’s audit and legal issues have been a topic of contention in the cryptocurrency community for a while now. Can they back all the Tether they’ve minted? A burning question that’s harder to answer than you’d think. 

For what is worth, USDC’s April independent audit is on the public record and says:

  • USD Coin (“USDC”) tokens issued and outstanding less tokens allowed but not issued (218,807,037) and less blacklisted tokens = 14,697,267,257 USDC  

  • US Dollars held in custody accounts are at least equal or greater than the USDC tokens outstanding at the Report Date and Time. 

Back to Coinzilla’s academy, the stablecoin’s characteristics are:

In essence, USD Coin is an ERC-20 token that functions through the Ethereum Network. Nowadays, USDC transactions can also be settled through Algorand, Solana, and Stellar’s infrastructures.

Since the launch of USDC 2.0, the payment process is simplified, the gas fees being paid directly in USDC. 

Related Reading | Circle’s Stablecoin USDC Passes Independent Audit, Fully Backed by USD

Stablecoins Are Supposed To Rule The USA in 2021

The official love affair between the US government and stablecoins started last January, when Jeremy Allaire from Circle announced that, “the largest US banking regulator with new guidance allowing US banks to use public blockchains and dollar stablecoins as a settlement infrastructure in the US financial system.” According to him, “Decentralized, permissionless, open source and internet mediated software is literally becoming the foundation for not just the US financial system but for the global economy.”

Recently, Randal K. Quarles, the Federal Reserve’s Vice Chair for Supervision, considerably raised the stakes:

In my judgment, we do not need to fear stablecoins. The Federal Reserve has traditionally supported responsible private-sector innovation. Consistent with this tradition, I believe that we must take strong account of the potential benefits of stablecoins, including the possibility that a U.S. dollar stablecoin might support the role of the dollar in the global economy. For example, a global U.S. dollar stablecoin network could encourage use of the dollar by making cross-border payments faster and cheaper, and it potentially could be deployed much faster and with fewer downsides than a CBDC.

Will stablecoins like USDC and USDT substitute the Digital Dollar project? Could they be an alternative to CBDCs? We’ll have to wait and see.

Featured Images by NeONBRAND on Unsplash - Charts by TradingView
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How Avalanche’s bridge to ETH and BTC could take over DeFi

Conceived as a blockchain ecosystem to launch DeFi and DApss and supported by a 3rd generation consensus protocol, Avalanche has recorded one of its best weeks since its launch. The fundamentals of its native token AVEX remain strong and as it gains more attention in the crypto space, it looks poised for another rally.

Ava Labs CEO Emin Gün Sirer confirmed that the platform recorded close to 1 million transactions on its smart contract blockchain. The surge in transaction volume, as reported by Sirer, occurred in the last two months adding that “Avalanche is becoming the most advanced public-goods layer-1.”

The platform was deployed with the capabilities to be “highly scalable and interoperable” even for corporate use. In that regard, Sirer stated that compatibility with Ethereum’s Virtual Machine has become a must-have for Avalanche and any other project looking to stay competitive in the DeFi and the layer-1 space.

Outlining how investors have been able to take advantage of Avalanche’s features in combination with Ethereum, Sirer said:

Multiple bridges enable assets to flow between the Avalanche and Ethereum ecosystems, putting users in-control of their DeFi strategies and exposure to fees. Just six months after the mainnet launch, this design and unique approach to interoperability is fueling the network’s first big wave of growth in users, applications, and assets.

Bridge to Bitcoin and competing in DeFi

High fees on Ethereum’s blockchain have caused a migration of users to lower-cost alternatives. Sirer argues that Avalanche is, along with Binance Smart Chain, one of the platforms that have seen a significant increase in user activity.

Avalanche to Ethereum (AEB) interoperable bridge was launched in early February and, since then, records a total of 970,000 transactions with its smart contract, 58,000 unique wallets created and $110 million in assets transferred, according to data shared by Sirer. Ava Labs CEO added:

API Requests are also skyrocketing, demonstrating that it’s not just a few whales diving in, but a rapidly developing DeFi ecosystem on Avalanche. Just last week, Avalanche APIs received 792.65M requests, including a period of 46.6M in just 3 hours.

It is expected that new bridges will be created between Avalanche and other blockchains, including one with Bitcoin, already in a test phase. More than 50 projects are working on the platform, with participation from Chainlink, SushiSwap, Fulcrum, among others.

In addition, Sirer reports rapid growth of automated marker makers and yield farms operating on Avalanche with Complus Network, YetiSwap, and others amassing a total of 6% of AVAX’s market capitalization. Sirer said:

Avalanche is leading the way in creating entirely new crypto assets like Initial Litigation Offerings, which unleashes the $10B asset class of litigation financing from the clutches of a privileged class of investors and into an open, fair, and transparent marketplace.

Avalanche’s platform has implemented improvements such as Sharding, Signature-separated transaction format, support for Bech32 addresses, transaction fee burning. Therefore, Avalanche is emerging as one of the strongest competitors to take the DeFi crown.

Native token AVEX has posted an 11.2% increase on the weekly chart and trades at $28.74. After a pullback from its high at $55, AVEX has plenty of room for future growth.

Avalanche DeFi AVAX ETH AVAXUSDT
AVAX with small gains on the 24-hour chart. Source: AVAXUSDT Tradingview