Circle, the company behind the popular USD Coin (USDC) stablecoin, has announced that it has added support for USDC on Arbitrum, a layer 2 scaling solution for Ethereum. This means that users can now transfer and use USDC on Arbitrum with lower fees and faster transactions than on the main Ethereum network.
Circle said that it has integrated with Arbitrum’s bridge contract, which allows users to deposit and withdraw USDC from Arbitrum using their existing Ethereum wallets. The company also said that it will provide APIs and SDKs for developers to easily integrate USDC on Arbitrum into their applications.
Circle and Arbitrum: A Match Made in Crypto Heaven?
According to Circle, USDC on Arbitrum will enable new use cases and opportunities for users and developers, such as:
- DeFi: Users can access various decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols and applications on Arbitrum that offer lending, borrowing, trading, and yield farming services using USDC as collateral or liquidity.
- Payments: Users can send and receive USDC on Arbitrum with lower costs and faster confirmation times than on Ethereum, making it more suitable for micropayments, remittances, and e-commerce.
- Gaming: Users can use USDC on Arbitrum to buy, sell, and trade in-game assets, tokens, and NFTs (non-fungible tokens) with more efficiency and security than on Ethereum.
The amount of USDC circulating on Arbitrum has reached $27.6 million. This is a small fraction of the total supply of USDC, which is around $28.5 billion. Arbitrum aims to reduce gas fees and increase transaction throughput for Ethereum users and developers. The price of ARB, the governance token of Arbitrum, has fallen 1.5% to $1.14 in the last 24 hours.
Circle said that it is committed to supporting USDC on multiple blockchains and layer 2 solutions, as part of its vision to make USDC a global standard for digital dollars. USDC can be used on different blockchains without affecting its value. It supports 8 blockchains natively: Hedera, Ethereum, Flow, Solana, Stellar, Avalanche, Algorand, and TRON.
