Coinbase has announced on October 12, 2023, that it will discontinue support for withdrawals of pUSDC, the wrapped version of USDC on the Polygon network. This development does not affect pUSDC deposits, and users can continue to withdraw the native USDC on Polygon.
Understanding USDC and Its Variants
USDC, a stablecoin pegged to the value of the US dollar, maintains a 1:1 parity with the US dollar. It is jointly created and operates on different blockchains, including Ethereum, Solana, and Polygon.
Notably, Polygon serves as a layer-2 scaling solution for Ethereum, offering faster and more cost-effective transaction processing through its sidechain infrastructure. Moreover, Polygon extends its support to decentralized applications (DApps) and tokens, including MATIC, ETH, and USDC.
Coinbase Prior Expansion of USDC on Polygon
Coinbase recently introduced the ability for users to deposit USDC tokens directly on the Polygon network. Previously, only the bridged version of the USDC token, referred to as USDC.e, was available on Polygon. However, this bridged version lacked support from Circle, the stablecoin’s distributor. Despite this limitation, the adoption of USDC on Polygon has seen substantial growth.
Over the past 24 months, USDC.e has achieved an impressive volume of nearly $550 billion on the Polygon PoS chain, representing approximately 1 in 9 transactions on the network. In addition to this, there has been a rapid increase in the number of wallets, with approximately 48.24 million wallets recorded by September 2023.
Circle’s Decision to Discontinue USDC.e Support
Circle, the distributor of USDC, will cease its support for deposit and withdrawal of USDC.e bridged on Polygon PoS across its APIs like Circle Mint and Express. Moving forward, only local USDC will be supported for transactions on Polygon.
As of now, it’s important to note that USDC holds the sixth position globally as the largest stablecoin, with a substantial market value of $25.25 billion. However, it remains behind Tether, which holds the third position with a market value of $83.5 billion.
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