USDC by Circle is now available on Base and Optimism, and Coinbase accounts can transfer stablecoins to Base for the first time.
Coinbase’s Base network was launched on August 9th. However, when it was initially launched, Coinbase users and Circle account holders couldn’t send USDC to the Base network directly from their exchange accounts. Base users had to use a bridge and rely on the north bridge version of USDC, called “USDbC,” to perform USD-denominated transactions. On August 29th, Jeremy Allaire, the CEO of Circle, announced that the original version of USDC would be made available “next week,” but no specific date was provided.
The announcement on September 5th stated that this currency is now available on Base. On the same day, the Coinbase interface began displaying the option to transfer USDC to Base.
Despite this official launch, many decentralized exchanges on the network continue to use the old version of this currency. Specifically, on Uniswap, BaseSwap, Aerodrome, Maverick, and others, the old contract addresses still appear when users select the stablecoin.
The announcement also highlighted that USDC has been introduced on Optimism, providing a replacement for the USDC.e token that was previously used on the network. Similar to Base, it appears that DEXs on Optimism have not yet integrated with the new version.