Circle takes an important step in regaining its competitiveness in the stablecoin market.
Circle's native stablecoin, USD Coin (USDC), has been officially deployed on the Base and Optimism networks.
Starting September 5th, Circle and Coinbase users can transfer USDC directly to the Base network. This move comes nearly a month after Base network's launch on August 9th, during which only a bridged version of USDC, termed "USDbC," was available for transactions.
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Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire had hinted at this development in late August, promising a native version of USDC on the Base network without specifying a release date.
On top of that, on the same day, USDC was also rolled out on the Optimism network. This aims to replace the previously used USDC.e token on that network.
It is worth noting that many decentralized exchanges like Uniswap, BaseSwap, Aerodrome, and Maverick are yet to integrate this new version, continuing to display the old contract addresses for USDC tokens.
Circle is reportedly actively collaborating with "ecosystem partners" to allow users to convert their older, bridged USDC tokens into these newly supported versions.
This expansion comes at a pivotal time for Circle. The company has been facing stiff competition, notably from Tether (USDT), which gained considerable market share earlier in the year. Moreover, the stablecoin market saw the introduction of new players this summer. Binance started promoting its June-released stablecoin First Digital USD (FDUSD), while PayPal launched its own stablecoin, PayPal USD (PYUSD), in August.
Circle's USD Coin took a significant step in increasing its accessibility and versatility by launching natively on the Base and Optimism networks. While the full integration across all decentralized exchanges is still pending, this move is Circle's attempt to regain its competitive edge in the ever-expanding stablecoin market.
