In a recent social media post on August 29th, CEO Jeremy Allaire announced that Circle’s USD-pegged stablecoin, USD Coin (USDC), will soon be directly available on the Base network “next week.” This new version will replace the current USD Base Coin (USDbC) that most users are using.
The Base network by Coinbase was launched on August 9th, and at that time, USDbC wasn’t available on the network. Therefore, users couldn’t deposit cash into their Circle accounts and receive equivalent USDC on Base.
To address this issue, the Base team allowed users to connect USDC from Ethereum through an official bridging application. The bridge-issued token is named “USDbC” and is backed by the original USDC locked on the Ethereum network.
As per Allaire’s announcement, Circle will soon begin issuing USDC on Base, ultimately eliminating the need for a bridged coin supported by the Ethereum version.
According to an accompanying blog post, the new token contract has already been deployed on Base. On the launch day, the team will explain how to convert existing USDbC into the original USDC.
The team will also “work with ecosystem apps” to enable liquidity providers to transition smoothly from supporting the current coin to providing liquidity for the new token. The existing USDbC-based foundational layer will continue to operate as usual for the time being.
Based on research, by August 10th, just one day after its launch, the Base network had already garnered over 136,000 users. As of August 25th, Base announced plans to share its revenue and manage an upcoming “Superchain” comprising Base, Optimism, and other networks.