Stablecoin USDC Supported on Optimism and Base

Optimism and Base are among the six blockchains Circle has committed to supporting USDC on in the coming period, aiming to boost the market cap utility of USDC.

Stablecoin USDC Supported on Optimism and Base. Image: Circle

On the evening of September 6th, stablecoin issuer Circle announced it had begun supporting USDC on two Ethereum layer-2 platforms garnering significant attention recently: Optimism (OP Mainnet) and Base.

Regular crypto users and organizations can now issue, convert, and trade Optimism and Base versions of USDC based on corresponding smart contracts provided by Circle.

With the addition of these two platforms, the number of blockchains featuring USDC has increased to 11, alongside previously supported networks such as Algorand, Arbitrum, Avalanche, Ethereum, Flow, Hedera, Solana, Stellar, and TRON.

Optimism and Base have seen considerable interest lately, ranking 2nd and 3rd in Total Value Locked (TVL) among top Ethereum layer-2 solutions.

Statistics of Ethereum layer-2 solutions with the highest TVL. Source: DefiLlama (06/09/2023)

Furthermore, Circle also announced support for the Cross-chain Transfer Protocol (CCTP) on Optimism, enabling USDC to be seamlessly transferred between Optimism and three other CCTP-enabled blockchains: Ethereum, Arbitrum, and Avalanche, through a mint-burn mechanism, thereby reducing risks associated with cross-chain token transfers.

The stablecoin issuer also released a list of several partners already integrated with CCTP on Optimism, including Celer Network's cBridge, ChainPort, Interport, Li.Fi Protocol, O3 Labs, OKX Wallet, Router Protocol, Socket, Synapse, Wanchain, and Wormhole.

As previously reported by Coin68, Circle has taken vigorous actions to "revive" its flagship stablecoin USDC after months of declining market cap following the March 2023 depegging crisis due to the US banking crisis. During this period, USDC's market cap dropped from $42 billion to $26 billion at the time of writing, while its competitor USDT continued to gain market share.

In mid-August, Circle announced additional investment from Coinbase, the largest US cryptocurrency exchange. Both parties agreed to dissolve the joint venture Centre to grant Circle full authority over the issuance and redemption of USDC, while maintaining profit-sharing agreements based on USDC holdings.

Additionally, to enhance USDC's utility, Circle plans to introduce USDC on six new blockchains, including Optimism, Base, Polygon PoS, Polkadot, NEAR, and Cosmos in September and October.

Fluctuations in USDC market cap over the past year. Source: CoinMarketCap (06/09/2023)

According to Santiment, the total market cap of the top six leading stablecoins increased by $663 million in the final two weeks of August 2023. This marks the first recovery of this index since the FTX crash in November 2022.