Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase is acquiring a minority stake in Circle Internet Financial, dissolving their partnership and bringing the stablecoin USD Coin fully in-house, while also adding native support for USDC on six additional blockchains, bringing the total to 15.
Summary: USD Coin (USDC) will be supported on six additional blockchains, including Cosmos, NEAR, Optimism, Polkadot, and Polygon PoS, as Circle aims to boost adoption for the stablecoin and differentiate it from its competitors.
Summary: Coinbase and Circle have dissolved the Centre Consortium due to regulatory clarity issues surrounding stablecoins, with Coinbase taking an equity stake in Circle and Circle assuming enhanced responsibilities for the USD Coin (USDC) stablecoin; Binance.US partners with MoonPay to use Tether (USDT) as its new "base asset" for transactions, while Binance faces challenges with fiat withdrawals in Europe; Shopify now accepts USDC payments on its platform, and Solana Pay plans to add additional altcoins; China launches a blockchain-powered data exchange with over 300 participating enterprises.
Bitcoin (BTC) remained relatively unchanged this week with a price of around $26,000, while the crypto market saw developments such as increased Bitcoin mining difficulty, negative reports on Binance, and the integration of USD Coin (USDC) on multiple blockchains. Additionally, there were updates on regulations, legal matters, crimes, and NFTs.
Tether (USDT) is the world's largest stablecoin with over $66 billion in market capitalization, despite controversies surrounding its collateral and reserve holdings.
Circle will soon launch a native version of its USD Coin (USDC) on the Base network, eliminating the need for the bridged version currently used by users.
Stablecoin issuer Tether has become one of the top buyers of US Treasury bills, with an exposure of $72.5 billion, ranking above several countries, according to Tether's CTO Paolo Ardoino. This highlights the relevance of USDT in emerging markets as a protection against inflation.
Circle, the company behind the stablecoin USDC, faced a crisis when $3.3 billion of its reserves were stuck at Silicon Valley Bank, causing USDC to lose its $1 peg and lose market share to rival stablecoin Tether, revealing the challenges and shortcomings of Circle's ambitions to reshape the financial system with its dollar-backed token.
Circle, the issuer of the USDC stablecoin, is focusing on Asia as it sees stablecoins as a way to improve cross-border payments for businesses in the region.
The amount of stablecoin USDT on crypto exchanges is increasing, which is seen as a positive sign, while the supply of Bitcoin and Ethereum on exchanges is decreasing, indicating strong holding sentiment and potential future buying interest.
