Fantom and Wormhole Deploy Circle’s Bridged USDC Standard, Paving the Way for Future Native Deployment

The Fantom Foundation has announced the first phase in the launch of its stablecoin USDC.e, powered by Wormhole and using Circle’s Bridged USDC Standard, for Opera and all future endeavors of Fantom’s Sonic technology. Starting as a bridged USDC stablecoin from Ethereum (USDC.e), the token becomes the canonical stablecoin for the Fantom network and replaces all other previously fragmented forms of USDC. Utilizing Wormhole's leading interoperability infrastructure, the first phase of this launch introduces USDC.e as a bridged, USDC-backed token. The Fantom Foundation provides liquidity for this canonical stablecoin, making it readily available to developers and users using Wormhole-based bridges to transfer USDC.e to Fantom.

Using Wormhole Native Token Transfers (NTT), Fantom expedites the process of integrating bridged USDC.e. NTT is an open-source framework for transferring tokens across blockchains without liquidity pools. Projects have full control over how their tokens that use NTT behave on each chain, including the token standard, metadata, ownership/upgradeability, and custom features. With NTT, projects can also retain fine-grained control over their security, such as rate-limiting, pausing, access control, and balance accounting.

This strategic move enhances the ecosystem's overall utility and provides builders with more ways to engage with Fantom. The introduction of USDC.e also sets a precedent as the first-ever bridged USDC standard outside of Ethereum L2s, offering a pathway for its potential evolution into native USDC.

Advantages of the Canonical USDC.e Stablecoin on Fantom

Implementation of the bridged USDC.e standard provides the following benefits to Fantom:

• This implementation creates a potential path towards a native USDC stablecoin on Fantom.
• Bridged USDC.e is immediately available to Fantom developers and users, with future-proof USDC upgradability baked in.
• The deployment of USDC.e addresses stablecoin liquidity fragmentation, consolidating liquidity to create a stronger ecosystem and better user experience.

The Future of USDC on Fantom

Once bridged USDC.e has been deployed on Fantom, Circle and the Fantom Foundation may come to a mutual decision at any time to upgrade it to native USDC. The transition would be seamless, requiring no action from developers or users. The support from Circle and the technological contributions from Wormhole would ensure uninterrupted experiences and continuous access to robust stablecoin liquidity on the Fantom Network.

By simplifying the transfer of USDC and other digital assets, Wormhole is making DeFi more accessible, interoperable, and seamlessly integrated across platforms. This integration with Circle and Fantom showcases the power of collaboration in overcoming the challenges of cross-chain communication and liquidity.

About Fantom

Fantom is a high-performance blockchain that supports smart contracts. Developers can build scalable applications with low fees while taking advantage of the full security offered by the Fantom Network.

About Wormhole

Wormhole is the leading interoperability platform that powers multichain applications and bridges at scale. Wormhole provides developers access to liquidity and users on over 30 of the leading blockchain networks, enabling use cases that span DeFi, NFTs, governance, and more.

The wider Wormhole network is trusted and used by teams like Circle and Uniswap. To date, the platform has facilitated the transfer of over 40 billion dollars through over 1 billion cross-chain messages. To learn more about Wormhole, visit the Wormhole website, Twitter, Discord, or blog.