Circle Introduces Native USDC Stablecoin, Expanding Polkadot Ecosystem
Circle, a stablecoin issuer, has announced the launch of USDC, the second-largest stablecoin by market capitalization, on the Polkadot Asset Hub parachain.

Developers, exchanges, digital wallets, and institutional traders can access the stablecoin via the Circle Account and Cicrle application programming interfaces (APIs) to make low-cost remittances, per Circle's September 19 public statement.
The Asset Hub parachain is intended to facilitate the issuance, management, and transmission of digital assets throughout the Polkadot ecosystem. Using the XCM protocol, users of the Polkadot network will be able to seamlessly transfer USDC to parachains.
In addition, Circle emphasised that Polkadot-based parachains such as Centrifuge, Moonbeam, and HydraDX will now offer USDC as the premier stablecoin, allowing users to store digital dollars without a traditional bank account.
There is, however, a disclaimer. Circle Account and Circle APIs will only support USDC issued on Polkadot Asset Hub within the Polkadot ecosystem, according to the stablecoin provider.
Before being permitted access to XCM, users must transfer USDC from their Circle Account to an external Polkadpt Asset Hub wallet.
Continuous USDC Extension by Circle
Prior to deploying the native USDC stablecoin to Polkadot's ecosystem, Cicle collaborated extensively with Solana Pay and Shopify, the two largest e-commerce payment solution platforms.
Solana Pay announced on August 23 that it had integrated its e-wallet with Shopify, allowing users to pay for goods and services in USDC.
With the integration, merchants and customers can connect to Solana's crypto wallets such as Phantom and resolve on-chain payments with USDC.
Solana Foundation representative Josh Fried told CoinDesk in an exclusive interview that the incorporation of the native stablecoin will cause merchants and consumers to "think in dollars."
He went on to clarify that because USDC is pegged to the U.S. dollar, which merchants and customers are familiar with, it makes pricing much simpler.
In contrast to credit card payments, which may take several days to consolidate, USDC transactions are resolved almost immediately.
After Ethereum, Solana, Arbitrum, Optimism, Tron, Polygon, and PoS, Polkadot became the most recent blockchain to support the native USDC stablecoin.
Circle's USDC has the potential to become the most widely used dollar-pegged asset and nurture a holistic approach to decentralised finance (DeFi) with additional integrations.
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