Circle, the issuer of the world’s second-largest stablecoin by market cap USDC, plans to have the primary seamless bridged-to-native USDC improve rolled out on layer 2 blockchain Linea.
In an announcement on Mar. 5, Circle mentioned the zero-knowledge powered Ethereum (ETH) layer 2 would be the first blockchain to witness USDC (USDC) improve. Linea is ready to maneuver from a bridged model of USDC to a local model.
Circle launched the Bridged USD Commonplace in November 2023 and since then, the stablecoin has turn out to be probably the most bridged belongings inside the crypto ecosystem.
New blockchains usually deploy the bridged model of the at present $56 billion stablecoin of their testnet or mainnet setting. Circle has, previously, added native assist to a number of EVM blockchains, rollups and different L2 platforms.
Nonetheless, Linea is ready to be the primary blockchain community to have its bridged USDC, or USDC.e, upgraded seamlessly to native issuance. It means deployment that provides the safety of being totally reserved and redeemable 1:1 for U.S. {dollars}.
“We’re making historical past with Circle by being the primary to improve from bridged to native USDC with zero disruption. The identical contract deal with, no liquidity fragmentation, simply sooner, safer transactions—that is what constructing a seamless blockchain infrastructure seems like,” Linea posted on X.
The improve will see a bridging pause for USDC.e on March 16, 2025. Nonetheless, USDC.e will stay usable in on-chain actions resembling buying and selling, spending and swapping.
As Circle notes in its weblog put up asserting the native USDC launch on Linea, assist additionally means entry to the stablecoin issuer’s Cross-Chain Switch Protocol.
Circle can even add CCTP V2 assist for Linea after the zkEVM L2’s native USDC launch, connecting it to Ethereum, Avalanche and Base for cross-chain transfers.
Launched by Consensys, Linea has seen notable development since its mainnet went stay in July 2023. The variety of decentralized functions on the community has surpassed 400, with greater than $250 million in transactions.
Use instances seeing vital development embrace decentralized finance, gaming, non-fungible tokens and digital id, amongst others. The L2 leads as the highest zkEVM by whole worth secured and, per DeFiLlama, at present boasts greater than $190 million in whole worth locked.
