Binance Lists Circle’s USDC as Interest in Stablecoins Heats up

Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by traded value, on Friday announced its newest listing, the dollar-pegged USDC, which was developed by Goldman-funded startup Circle.

The surprise listing comes in the midst of an explosion of new stablecoins, which are used as a proxy for physical money on many cryptocurrency exchanges. As reported by Circle, more than 50 partners have involved themselves in the USDC network.

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Beginning immediately, Binance enabled support for USDC deposits with trading on the stablecoin’s pairs, against Bitcoin and Binance’s token BNB, to start on November 17.

The new listing comes amid a mass exodus from Tether, which Binance has been using as a base trading pair against Bitcoin. Circle’s New York BitLicense will offer a fully audited alternative, in contrast to Tether which has been the subject of controversy and regulatory scrutiny due to lingering questions about its cash reserves.

Growing Interest

Acting as a sort of safe haven where crypto traders can park their assets in volatile markets, USDC is an Ethereum-based ERC-20 coin, which makes it easy for wallets, exchanges and other smart contracts to interact with the token.

Circle’s stablecoin is based on an open source fiat stablecoin framework developed and governed by the CENTRE project.

USDC goes head-to-head with other stablecoins such as Gemini Dollar, Paxos Standard, and Tether (USDT). And in a bid to accelerate adoption of its service to tokenize the buck, Circle said it would no longer charge fees from customers redeeming USDC into US Dollars, making it more attractive for crypto exchanges, protocols, platforms, applications, and wallets.

The explosion of stablecoins is seen by many as a step to further the adoption process of cryptocurrencies, as it would give users an introduction to the main benefits of blockchain technology without having to experience extreme market volatility.

Last month, New York-based and regulated platform Gemini secured US regulatory approval for its own stablecoin, the Gemini dollar – another cryptocurrency pegged to the US dollar.