Circle Financial, the leading peer-to-peer payments technology company behind the stablecoin USDC, recently announced the expansion of its euro-pegged euro coin (EUROC) on the Avalanche blockchain. The EUROC stablecoin was first launched in 2022 on the Ethereum blockchain as an ERC20 token, with a vision to:
Unlock new opportunities for global commerce, faster and more efficient FX, and greater access to the euro around the world.
The EUROC is the second major fiat-pegged token introduced by Circle, following the USDC, which has a substantial market capitalisation of nearly $29 billion. There are approximately 47.11 million EUROC in circulation and it is held by nearly 1400 unique addresses, however its market capitalization is much smaller, at $48 million. According to a tweet by the company, bringing the EUROC to be hosted natively on the proof of stake blockchain Avalanche will improve liquidity and flexibility to transact in Euro and enable:
Developers [to] build on top of [eurocoin] on Avalanche to deliver faster, more efficient solutions for users to send, spend, save, lend, and borrow with a fully reserved, euro-backed stablecoin
Avalanche, following its launch in late 2020, has become one of the most rapidly growing Web3 ecosystems, with more than 8 million active wallet addresses. Described by Circle as an ‘eco-friendly, decentralized smart contracts platform’ that enables affordable and near-instant settlement transactions, it is currently used to drive numerous projects across DeFi, NFTs, gaming, institutional and enterprise. The native token of the Avalanche platform, AVAX, powers transactions within the Avalanche ecosystem and has a market cap of approximately USD$4.7B.
The decision to launch EUROC on the Avalanche network follows shortly after Circle's USDC briefly lost its peg over concerns about reserves trapped in Silicon Valley Bank which collapsed earlier this year.
Circle has highlighted its optimism for the EUROC, noting that it is already receiving support from notable DeFi protocols and applications including Curve Finance, Cable Finance, Benqi and Pangolin Dex, among others. With the European Union actively discussing its own digital Euro, it remains to be seen whether the EUROC will reach widespread usage similar to USDC as Circle deploys its multi-chain strategy for the Euro stablecoin.
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