Circle launches USDC stablecoin on Hedera network
Circle, the issuer of the USDC stablecoin, has expanded the coin's support to the Hedera Hashgraph blockchain network.
This makes USDC the first stablecoin available on Hedera. Launched in 2018, Hedera is a proof-of-stake blockchain network owned and governed by different organizations, including Google and IBM. These organizations run "permissioned" nodes on the network. Over time, Hedera aims to move to a permissionless model.
With USDC's availability on Hedera, the network hopes to bring decentralized finance (DeFi) applications to its platform. Last month, the Hedera Governing Council earmarked 10.7 billion HBAR tokens (worth nearly $4 billion at current prices) toward the development of the Hedera ecosystem, including for DeFi applications.
"With the USDC launch on the Hedera network, The HBAR Foundation is taking an important step toward fulfilling its mission to ease the development and launch of DeFi applications on the network," said Shayne Higdon, CEO and executive director of the HBAR Foundation. "This integration aligns well with the growing tokenized economy on the Hedera network and will help drive new projects. We look forward to working with the community to bring these applications to market."
Stablecoins play an essential role in the DeFi market. Traders use these coins to trade with and lend them out to earn high yields on DeFi protocols.
With the addition of Hedera, Circle now supports USDC on a total of six blockchains, including Ethereum, Algorand, Solana, Stellar, and TRON.
USDC is the second-largest stablecoin in the market, after Tether (USDT). It has a total supply of nearly $33 billion compared to USDT's over $72 billion supply, according to The Block's Data Dashboard.
