USDC Goes Native: Circle’s Stablecoin to Fuel Celo Blockchain

• Circle’s USD coin, USDC, will debut on the Celo blockchain, with the community set to vote on a proposal to make USDC the gas currency for the ecosystem.
• The integration will help increase activity on the blockchain as it seeks to boost use cases for real-world assets.

Circle and the Celo blockchain are celebrating a successful partnership between the two industry leaders. The Celo network confirmed on January 30th that Circle’s USD coin, USDC, will launch natively on the Celo blockchain. The team further revealed that the Celo community will soon vote on whether to make USDC an official gas currency.

This integration is ground-breaking, with both parties set to benefit immensely from each other. USDC is hailed as the leading regulated digital dollar, with its issuing company Circle not only leading the way in compliance and calling for regulation in the U.S. but also recently revealing plans to go public this year. This will see it fall under even greater scrutiny from regulators and become only the second major firm after Coinbase to go public.

Celo blockchain, on the other hand, prides itself on the regenerative finance movement and its carbon-neutral and mobile-first approach. The team has emphasized a mobile-first approach to improve the user experience in emerging economies. With the latest addition, USDC expands Celo’s pioneering stablecoin use cases, joining local currencies such as Mento’s cREAL and eXOF, pegged to the Brazilian Real and West African Franc.

By integrating USDC, the network is offering businesses and developers a fast, secure, and stable option for payments and as a store of value. The official announcement further explains that “the Celo ecosystem will benefit from the availability of institutional on-/off-ramps like Circle Mint, which is available to institutional and enterprise customers,” promoting its use cases.

With Celo enabling the use of stablecoins for gas fees, cLabs (a global organization contributing to the Celo ecosystem.) will share a proposal for the Celo community’s consideration to enable users to pay for gas with USDC.

Circle senior business development manager Shamus Noonan said in a statement:

This partnership will help broaden access for USDC and leverage Celo’s mobile-first user-base in regions where blockchain adoption is highest.

Isha Varshney, Head of Strategy and Innovation at the Celo Foundation, noted that Celo aims to become the best ecosystem for stablecoins. Varshney further revealed that this market has proven to be among the industry’s prevailing use cases as institutional investors come into Web3.

In the wake of this development, Celo’s native token, CELO, has recorded a marginal loss of 1.2% as part of the wider market trend. However, on the weekly chart, the altcoin is up by 7%. Trading for $0.6666 at the time of writing, investors remain optimistic that the altcoin will hit its all-time high of $9.82 reached about two years ago.