Circle’s Native USDC Goes Live on World’s Blockchain

Digital identity company World has expanded its partnership with stablecoin issuer Circle.

The company announced Wednesday (June 11) that Circle’s USDC and CCTP V2 (Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol) had gone live on World Chain.

“If you’re saying to yourself, ‘I thought USDC was already on World,’ you’ve actually hit upon the ‘so what’ of all this,” World said in its announcement.

“Almost two million humans on World already held bridged USDC in their World App wallets. It’s now upgraded to native USDC issued directly by Circle. World is uniquely globally distributed with over 27 million users in over 160 countries.”

But now, Circle has converted all existing bridged USDC held on World Chain to native USDC, meaning it is now 100% backed by “highly liquid cash and cash-equivalent assets,” the company said.

“This automatic upgrade makes it the regulated digital dollar that’s trusted globally by users and developers today,” World added.

With CCTP V2, transferring USDC across supported chains becomes faster and more cost effective, letting developers, businesses and consumers “quickly and easily move funds and fully benefit from DeFi composability.”

The announcement notes that the arrangement lets the more than 27 million users on World Chain use a regulated digital dollar for transfers to and from the blockchain, while developers can build USDC straight into World App Mini Apps “and tap into a globally distributed blockchain.”

The announcement comes amid a busy time for Circle, which debuted on the New York Stock Exchange last week. Soon after, the company’s stock surged from the $31 per share at which the IPO was priced, and which was above the expected range, to $83.23 at close.

“Our transformation into being a public company is a significant and powerful milestone — the world is ready to start upgrading and moving to the internet financial system,” Circle Co-founder and CEO Jeremy Allaire said in a post on X after the debut.

Circle’s initial public offering (IPO) was one indication that investors have been putting their dollars to work to help quicken the tech-driven transformation of money movement, PYMNTS reported the day after the listing.

“Other recent funding rounds have touched on everything from infrastructure to B2B to platform-based lending,” PYMNTS wrote recently. “For example, Circle’s venture investment arm participated in the Series A round of stablecoin-focused cross-border payments platform Conduit, which raised $36 million in new funding.”