Circle Launches USDC on Avalanche to Drive DeFi Adoption

BOSTON, Dec. 14, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Circle, a global internet finance firm that provides internet-based payments and financial infrastructure to businesses of all sizes and principal operator of USD Coin (USDC), today announced native support for USDC on the Avalanche public blockchain- an eco-friendly, decentralized smart contracts platform empowering the next generation of Decentralized Finance (DeFi) with low fees and near-instant finality.

With more than $40B USDC in circulation as of December 2021, USDC is the world's fastest-growing dollar digital currency. The integration will create more seamless transaction and payment options for developers and participants in Avalanche's exponentially growing, interconnected ecosystem of DeFi protocols, enterprise applications, NFT marketplaces, and more. Customers can deposit, withdraw, send and receive payments, and settle transactions with USDC on Avalanche. Developers can also take advantage of Circle's suite of developer APIs, which have been updated to support USDC on Avalanche.

"Support for USDC on Avalanche comes at an exciting and pivotal moment for the growing, multi-billion dollar DeFi market," said Jeremy Allaire, CEO and Co-founder of Circle. "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 was recently recognized as a net-zero carbon output blockchain at the United Nations (UN) COP26 conference, heralding a radical new era of eco-friendly, sustainable, net-zero digital transactions. Avalanche is compatible with Ethereum smart contracts and tooling, enabling Ethereum users and developers to quickly access and launch high-performance decentralized apps. Support for USDC will be available on Avalanche's C-Chain, the default smart contract blockchain for the creation of Ethereum-compatible applications and assets with lower fees and faster transactions.

"Physical fiat currency is increasingly becoming a relic of the past – a trend which the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated," says John Wu, President of Ava Labs. "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."

In addition to Avalanche, Circle now supports USDC across the Ethereum, Algorand, Solana, Stellar, TRON, and Hedera blockchains, enabling seamless interoperability across multiple blockchains and establishing USDC as the standard means of value transfer across the internet.

About Circle

Circle is a global financial technology firm that enables businesses of all sizes to harness the power of digital currencies and public blockchains for payments, commerce and financial applications worldwide. Circle is the principal operator of USD Coin (USDC), the leading dollar digital currency powering always-on internet-native commerce and payments with a circulation greater than $40 billion and over $1.4 trillion in on-chain transactions. Today, Circle's transactional services, business accounts, and platform APIs are giving rise to a new generation of financial services and commerce applications that hold the promise of raising global economic prosperity for all through the frictionless exchange of financial value. Additionally, Circle operates SeedInvest, one of the largest startup fundraising platforms in the U.S. Learn more at https://circle.com.

About Avalanche

Avalanche is the fastest smart contracts platform in the blockchain industry, as measured by time-to-finality. Avalanche is blazingly fast, low cost, and eco-friendly. Any smart contract-enabled application can outperform its competition by deploying on Avalanche. Don't believe it? Try an app on Avalanche today.

SOURCE Circle Internet Financial LLC