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Circle is launching a native version of its dollar-pegged token USDC on Avalanche.

USDC Heads to Avalanche

Avalanche is adding native USDC support.

Circle announced today that it would be launching USDC on the Avalanche C-Chain. Following the integration, users will be able to mint and redeem USDC tokens directly on the Avalanche blockchain rather than bridging them over from Ethereum.

With over $40 billion in circulation as of December, Circle’s USDC is the fastest-growing and the second-largest stablecoin on the market behind Tether’s USDT. USDC is also the most widely used stablecoin on Avalanche, with over 1.3 billion coins in circulation on the chain today. 

Commenting on the integration in a press release, Circle CEO and co-founder Jeremy Allaire said: 

“Support for USDC on Avalanche comes at an exciting and pivotal moment for the growing, multi-billion dollar DeFi market. 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 is an Ethereum Virtual Machine-compatible smart contract blockchain touting high transaction throughput and net-zero carbon output. Its native token, AVAX, is currently the world’s 12th largest cryptocurrency, with a market capitalization of around $19.6 billion at press time.

Over the last year, Ethereum’s soaring transaction fees have prompted an increasing number of users to migrate to other Layer 1 blockchains. Avalanche was one of the biggest beneficiaries of this migration away from the leading smart contract blockchain. Its DeFi ecosystem has soared from roughly $180 million to around $10.5 billion in total value locked since August. 

According to Avalanche’s press release, the integration of native USDC on the C-Chain “will create more seamless transaction and payment options for developers and participants” in the protocol’s growing DeFi ecosystem.

Disclosure: At the time of writing, the author of this feature owned ETH and several other cryptocurrencies.