The $6 million USDC stablecoin, developed by Circle Internet Financial and backed by cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, has been launched on the Stellar blockchain.
Originally developed on the Ethereum blockchain, USDC has seen more than ten-fold increase in market price over the past 12 months. There is currently almost $6 billion worth of USDC in circulation.
Stablecoins, mostly tied to fiat currencies or real-world assets, are cryptocurrencies designed to facilitate global payments without the volatility often associated with the likes of BTC. As we reported on Kriptokoin.com , the stablecoin market exploded when the OCC said it would allow the use of stablecoins for bank payments.
USDC’s Stellar launch came in December after credit card giant Visa announced it would connect its global payments network of 60 million merchants to USDC. Since then, the number of SUDC tokens in circulation has doubled.
According to a report in Forbes, Circle CEO and founder Jeremy Allaire said before the launch, “We want USDC to be adopted as widely as possible. “As a blockchain, Stellar is designed for payments.”
The Stellar network experienced significant improvements in the past year
The Stellar network handled over 1.5 billion transactions and saw a 104% year-over-year increase in total payments on the network over the past year. By using USDC on the Stellar blockchain, processes are thought to be faster and cheaper than on Ethereum.
Stellar Development Foundation CEO Denelle Dixon said, “Bringing a strong, stable presence to Stellar is invaluable. We want to make cross-border payments quickly. This will help ensure scale,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Stellar Development Foundation focuses on growth in Latin America and Africa.
XLM price affected?
Following this news, there was a slight increase in the price of XLM, the local cryptocurrency of the blockchain network. Rising from $0.32 to $0.34, XLM is trading at $0.33 with a 5% increase at the time of writing.