- USDC will be launched on the Cosmos ecosystem as a replacement for Terra’s fallen UST
- Noble aims to provide a solution for bridging assets from the Cosmos ecosystem to other networks
- The launch date is yet to be revealed but users have been asked to “stay tuned”
Circle, the issuer of USDC stablecoin, has announced that it will launch the stablecoin on the Cosmos ecosystem in collaboration with Noble Network.
The news was made public by Circle on Twitter in response to Noble’s announcement, which said that the network would become an issuance platform for the native stablecoin within the Cosmos and Inter-Blockchain Communication (IBC) ecosystem.
In an official blog post, Noble noted that there has never been a native, fully collateralized, incredibly liquid, fiat-backed stablecoin in the IBC ecosystem, which will make USDC the first. The team said,
” This integration will catalyze hundreds of millions of dollars in liquidity over the coming months in Cosmos and will seek to rectify the challenges that users and appchains face when interacting with bridged assets sourced from other ecosystems.”
Noble also said, ” In the future, we believe that hundreds of highly liquid, well-adopted Cosmos blockchains will exist. Every blockchain needs a canonical and fungible version of USDC, and Noble exists to fulfill this critical need,” adding that this collaboration was just the beginning as it plans to usher in more digital assets into the IBC ecosystem.
Users on Cosmos can currently only access significant stablecoins via bridge protocols like Axelar and Gravity. As such, Noble believes that introducing USDC will give DeFi protocols in the ecosystem a stablecoin to fall back on and resultantly add new liquidity.
“It’s also for the users to have a seamless process of accessing native assets in the ecosystem. We’re seeking to rectify the challenges that users and app chains face when interacting with bridge assets,” said the CEO of Noble, Jelena Djuric.
Noble attributed the idea to launch USDC to dYdX’s decision to build their IBC-enabled appchain. That, in addition to the need for a
large, trusted stablecoin in the IBC ecosystem that would replace Terra’s UST fueled this collaboration.
In response to the news, the price of Cosmos (ATOM) increased by almost 5%, reaching a high of $11.52 since the announcement. The trading volume on the ATOM market has also increased, implying an increase in investor interest and a rise in the coin’s demand.
Eventful Q1 for Cosmos
Cosmos has had a lot of activity and action in recent months as it began the year with open arms for collaboration. At the start of the year in January, Injective Protocol established a $150 million fund in January to encourage users to adopt and use the Cosmos ecosystem. The fund received support from investors such as Kraken Ventures, Jump Crypto, and Pantera Capital.
The following month, the Cosmos Interchain Foundation allocated $40 million to fund the development of essential systems and software for the ecosystem. The funds would also be used to support projects that encourage the adoption of Cosmos and offers more use cases for the platform.
Circle’s Expansion Plans
This move by Circle was announced in September when the firm revealed that it would begin circulating USDC on the Arbitrum One, NEAR, Optimism, and Polkadot chains by the end of 2022, with plans to enter the Cosmos ecosystem sometime in early this year.
The expansion was necessitated by the increased competition between US-pegged stablecoins that challenged and threatened the stablecoin’s market position seeing as USDC is the second-largest stablecoin.
Circle decided to increase the asset’s availability across crypto networks, hoping to open “the door for institutions, exchanges, developers and more to innovate and have easier access to a trusted and stable digital dollar,” as stated by Circle’s Vice President of Product, Joao Reginatto.
