USDC supply surge as Circle’s expands native issuance to Celo for better payments

Circle’s USD Coin (USDC) stablecoin has expanded to the Celo Network to enhance cross-border payments and peer-to-peer transactions.

The Celo Foundation, in a Jan. 30 statement shared with CryptoSlate, highlighted the potential of this expansion to facilitate local currency conversions seamlessly.

“USDC joins [Celo’s] ecosystem stablecoin use cases, including remittances, savings, lending, aid disbursement, peer-to-peer (P2P), and cross-border payments,” Circle added.

Notably, CLabs, an entity focused on Celo ecosystem development, will propose a community vote to pay transaction fees using USDC, further integrating the stablecoin into the network’s functionalities.

Expressing enthusiasm about the collaboration, Isha Varshney, the Head of Strategy and Innovation at the Celo Foundation, emphasized the objective of becoming the premier ecosystem for stablecoins in response to the growing interest of institutional investors in Web3.

“The Celo ecosystem is excited to bring more RWAs onchain through our partnership with Circle and the launch of USDC on Celo.” Varshney stated.

On the other hand, Shamus Noonan, Senior Business Development Manager at Circle, noted the partnership’s role in expanding USDC accessibility and leveraging Celo’s mobile-first user base.

While operating as a layer-1 blockchain, Celo is poised to transition into an Ethereum Layer 2 network. The blockchain network’s ecosystem has over 1,000 projects in over 150 countries, including enterprise partners like Deutsche Telekom, Google Cloud, and Opera.

USDC’s supply growth

This development follows a notable increase in USDC’s supply this month.

Data from CryptoSlate shows a growth of over 2 billion, marking an 8% rise since the beginning of the year, bringing the total to 26.46 billion as of press time.

This surge reflects a renewed sense of confidence the stablecoin enjoys among crypto investors. Blockchain analytical firm Artemis stated that Solana-based USDC was instrumental in driving stablecoins transfer volumes to their highest levels in over a year.

The stablecoin’s fate has also been bolstered by the current positive sentiments pervading the market due to the recent launch of several spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and its issuer’s plan to go public via an initial public offering filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.