Payment Firm Circle to Bring Euro Coin to Solana in Early 2023

Circle, the US-based payments company that issues the stablecoin USD coin (USDC), announced its plans to bring its Euro Coin and cross-chain transfer protocol to Solana (SOL) in early 2023.

In a Sunday press release, the company said that it aims to expand native support of Euro Coin and access to its new permissionless cross-chain infrastructure on Solana in “the first half of 2023.”

Major crypto exchange FTX intends to support deposits, withdrawals, and trading of Euro Coin on Solana at launch, said Circle, and added:

“Many of the largest decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols on Solana have also expressed their intent to support Euro Coin at launch, including Raydium and Solend.”

Sheraz Shere, Head of Payments at Solana Labs, was quoted by the announcement as saying that,

“The availability of Euro Coin on Solana unlocks new use cases for instant FX [foreign exchange], provides optionality for traders with a new base currency, allows for Euro Coin lending and borrowing and will be available alongside USDC as a payment currency in Solana Pay.”

The company said that this move marks its “first in a series of intended commitments” to provide expanded support for these two initiatives.

Circle announced the Euro Coin in June this year. It described this new asset as “a fully-reserved, euro-pegged stablecoin from the United States [….], a regulated, euro-backed stablecoin issued under the same full-reserve model and built on the same pillars” as USDC. It launched on the Ethereum (ETH) blockchain that month.

Then in October, the company revealed its Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol, meant to help developers “build seamless user experiences for sending and transacting USDC natively across blockchains,” it said. It added that the protocol would initially be available on Ethereum and Avalanche (AVAX) by the end of 2022, with plans to add support for more chains in 2023. This latest press release, however, said that the protocol would be launched at the beginning of 2023.

“Among a growing roster of integration partners, Wormhole intends to support the protocol’s implementation on Solana at launch,” it added.

Meanwhile, at the end of September, Circle said that they intended to make USDC available on four additional blockchain ecosystems by the end of 2022: Arbitrum, NEAR, Optimism, and Polkadot.

Also, Strangelove Labs, with support from Informal Systems, Iqlusion, and Osmosis Labs, said it was working with Circle to make USDC natively available on Cosmos in early 2023.

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Learn more:
– Circle Denies USDC Trouble Rumors, Tether Supply Still Elevated on Curve
– Circle’s Euro Coin 

– Circle’s Valuation Doubles to USD 9B as New Holding Company Expected to Go Public
– USDT vs. USDC vs. UST: How Do They Compare?