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Amazon.eth ENS Domain Receives $1 Million Worth USDC Bid

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The Ethereum Name Service, or ENS, domain Amazon.eth was offered one million USDC on Tuesday by an unidentified wallet address on OpenSea.

But there was no response to the offer to acquire the Ethereum Name Service domain, and no deal was made. Despite the fact that the domain name was last sold five months ago for 33 Ether, which was equivalent to almost $100,000 at the time.

Was the ENS owner unaware of the bid?

It is unknown at this point if the owner was simply unaware of the offer, did not think it was close to fair value, or whether the bidding and domain owner accounts were linked in an effort to artificially inflate the asset’s worth or generally a wash trade.

Other bids for the Ethereum Name Service domain currently stand at little under $6,200 USDC, according to statistics from Opensea. Ethereum Name Service has confirmed the legitimacy of the domain name, which is registered to anonymous OpenSea user 4761BF.

Ethereum Name Service is a blockchain naming protocol that enables users to transfer and receive cryptocurrency and nonfungible tokens as well as save avatars and profile photos for usage across devices.

Users would have to first link one‘s wallet and enroll an address before listing a .eth domain for sale on OpenSea.

While many cryptocurrency fans choose unique or imaginative names for the Ethereum Name Service fomains, others have started domain-flipping.

Ethereum Name Service domains containing the names of well-known organizations would be registered in advance, and if the organization later decided to enter the Web 3.0 arena, it would then demand a premium fee for the domain.

Over 1.67 million.eth domains have been registered since its launch in 2017, with roughly 482,000 owners.

USDC provider’s silver lining shines bright via stablecoin plans

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One of the most well-known stablecoins offered worldwide is USD Coin (USDC-USD). It serves as the foundation for countless exchanges and has mostly avoided the sticky circumstances that Tether (USDT-USD), its major rival, has encountered. This month, the token is increasing its reserves, which is positive news in and of itself. However, there is more good news for the stablecoin supporters: Circle, the coin’s parent firm, plans to go public by the end of the year.

Circle and Coinbase introduced USDC in the latter part of 2018. The underlying trading activity on Coinbase is one of the stablecoin’s main applications. The introduction represented the first time one could purchase and sell cryptocurrency using a currency that is still tethered to the U.S. dollar because Coinbase hadn’t supported stablecoins up until that moment (USD). But it has developed into much more than that since then. Currently, users use tens of thousands of dapps, exchanges, and DeFi platforms to transact billions of dollars in USDC.

USDC’s circle’s 19 principles

As part of the company’s efforts to influence US stablecoin legislation, Dante Disparte, the head of Circle’s government work, presented a list of 19 principles for stablecoin regulation on July 18.

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Source: circle.com

For those who have been following the discussion on stablecoin issuance, the guiding principles—privacy, continued issuance by non-banks, and coexistence with a hypothetical central bank digital currency—are fairly well known. After Tether, Circle’s USDC, which has a $45 billion total supply, is the second-largest stablecoin.

Disparte further added,

“The preservation of bank and non-bank dollar digital currency issuance promotes competition, a level playing field, and rules-based upgrades in the financial system. Bank-like risks should be addressed with scale-appropriate bank grade levels, including asset liability management, operational and enterprise risk management considerations.”

In December, Disparte gave testimony to the Senate about stablecoins. At the time, he was already promoting a similar multifaceted strategy for stablecoin regulation, which has been heavily requested by the sector. The Treasury, on the other hand, has advocated for restricting issuance to “insured depository institutions,” which are typically banks. Jeremy Allaire, the CEO of Circle, has also frequently appeared in congressional hearings on cryptocurrencies.

Stripe and Twitter launches crypto payouts in USDC via Polygon

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On April 22, Payments startup Stripe announced crypto payouts with USDC, over the Polygon network, enabling a select group of creators on Twitter to receive crypto payments via the Stripe Connect platform. As stated in the blog, Twitter already pays creators using Connect from the platform’s monetization products, including Ticketed Spaces and Super Follows.

With the addition of crypto payouts, the social media platform will provide an option for creators to have their earnings paid out to a cryptocurrency wallet. Stripe said it will handle all crypto-related complexity and operations. Creators on Twitter will be able to receive payments initially in the stablecoin USD Coin.

The payment processor claimed it chose the Polygon network for its low fees, speed, integration with Ethereum, and broad wallet compatibility [including MetaMask, Coinbase Wallet, and Rainbow].

“Creators and freelancers who opt to be paid in crypto will pass through Stripe’s normal onboarding flows. It will perform comprehensive KYC, and the flow will dynamically adapt as cryptocurrency regulations evolve. Creators can easily manage their account details, track earnings in real-time, and see upcoming payouts with the Stripe Express app.”

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Stripe and Twitter launches crypto payouts in USDC via Polygon 3

Once creators get their earnings, they can hold their balance on Polygon, or choose to bridge to Ethereum and exchange it for another currency, the blog read.

Recently Polygon unveiled the Green Manifesto, pledging $20 million to mitigate the ecosystem’s carbon footprint as the crypto industry continues to face criticism over energy usage. Stripe too set up a new fund this month to ramp up carbon dioxide removal technologies.

Stripe’s big bet for crypto adoption

The move reflects the firm’s renewed interest in crypto. The fintech giant began recruiting crypto talent last year and raised $600 million in a fundraising round at a $95 billion valuation. The firm processed $640 billion in payments in 2021, a 60% increase from a year earlier.

In March, it teamed up with digital-asset exchanges FTX and Blockchain.com with online payments and customer verification.

Having said that, Stripe plans to add support for other cryptocurrencies beyond USD Coin and provide access to crypto payments in more than 120 countries by the end of 2022, signaling its intention to expand the adoption of digital assets.

Solana’s Newest Product aims to offer “Decentralized Payments at Scale”

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Solana labs announced its newest product called Solana pay that is seeking to provide low-cost, instant settlement for online and in-store payments. Firms that are supporting the new payment protocol include Checkout.com, Circle, and Citcon with integrations with crypto exchange FTX and ecosystem wallets Phantom and Slope.

In accordance with the blog post, the primary reason behind Solana Pay is that the payment and underlying technology go from being a necessary service utility to a true peer-to-peer communication channel between the merchant and consumer.

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In the blog published, Sheraz Shere, head of payments for Solana Labs stated that Crypto payments have been central to the industry since the Bitcoin white paper advocated “peer-to-peer electronic cash” over a decade ago. But a mix of price volatility, slow on-chain settlement, and tax headaches hampered growth.

“Now that we have a blockchain that has the throughput, speed and scalability and low fees of traditional payment networks – 50,000 transactions per second and sub-second transfer times, we can potentially build a merchant payment system that’s truly on the blockchain, and most importantly, that’s peer-to-peer and decentralized and permissionless.”

While the payment platform can utilize the native SOL token or any other asset built on its blockchain, it’s however keenly focusing on Circle’s USDC, the world’s second largest USDC is primarily built on Ethereum as it currently has a market capitalization of $4 billion out of USDC’s total $50 billion.

Speaking on the development Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire in a separate blog post said, ‘The launch of Solana Pay is a critical step toward broadening access and usage for merchants and customers who want a faster, more efficient payment option for everyday commerce.’

But the buck does not stop here.

Solana Pay other use cases

The blog post further mentions Solana Pay’s ability to open a direct communication channel with a customer, providing merchants with consumer loyalty and engagement tools. The developer said it would soon allow merchants to send users nonfungible tokens [NFTs] in addition to more traditional but blockchain-enhanced loyalty programs.

That being said, Solana despite being touted for its high throughput and low fees has witnessed a series of network outages recently following which its developers have released a new mainnet version with more upgrades in the coming months.

Circle’s USDC hits $50B in market cap as it looks to dethrone Tether

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USDC, the world’s second-biggest stablecoin by market capitalization recently hit a new milestone as it crossed the $50 billion mark of the dollar-pegged asset circulating supply, looking to topple the dominance of the current leader, Tether [USDT] in the stablecoin landscape.

In fact, just two weeks ago, the cumulative supply for USDC on Ethereum has overtaken that of Tether, putting USDT in second place on Ethereum for the first time.

At present, Tether supply is mostly split between Ethereum and Tron, with nearly 39 billion and 36 billion USDT on each network, respectively, and the rest on others such as Solana [SOL], Omni [OMNI], and Algorand [ALGO], according to its transparency report.

Sharing the latest news via Twitter, the USDC creator Circle published a blog detailing the exponential trajectory of the stablecoin which has grown 10x over the course of 2021. In addition to that a recent tweet by company co-founder and CEO, Jeremy Allaire said while this is a huge number,

‘It’s the massive growth and ecosystem around it that tells the broader story.’ Adding that USDC has seen 10,000% growth over the past two years.

USDC catching on as Tether dominance diminishes

Crypto research firm Delphi Digital observed even though USDT is still the market cap leader, its growth has however slowed down compared to USDC since May 2021.

The total stablecoin supply currently stands at $177 billion, which captures 9.7% of the total crypto market capitalization. Of that, Tether commands around 45%, whereas Circle now takes a 29% share, rapidly closing the gap.

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Circle's USDC hits $50B in market cap as it looks to dethrone Tether 6

Interestingly at this time, last year Tether controlled around 74% with Circle taking a mere 16% of the stablecoin pie. According to CoinGecko, Circle’s stablecoin market capitalization rose by 987% in 2021 whereas, over the same period, Tether’s supply saw less than a third of that growth with 275%.

As per Circle’s CEO, the stablecoin network recorded $2.5 trillion in on-chain transactions and 4.6 million active wallet addresses in 2021 alone. To top that, USDC runs on eight different blockchains, is supported by 200 protocols, and can be traded in 180 countries on 34 exchanges around the world.

In addition to this, Circle on 31st January 2022 announced that the firm is expanding its USDC multichain on the Flow Network to enable users to pay on Web3.

Circle publishes USDC stablecoin attestation to increase transparency

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USDC stablecoin has managed to garner significant traction over the past few months. Since the beginning of the year, the dollar-pegged stablecoin had grown more than 2,600%. in terms of circulation. In the latest development, Jeremy Allaire, the CEO of the team behind the digital token, Circle has published a new post wherein he elucidated that the stablecoin is backed by trust, transparency, and accountability.

Allaire claimed in his blog post that Circle and the Centre Consortium has guaranteed the “pillars of trust” to ensure that the community recognises that USDC remains backed on a 1:1 basis with dollar-denominated assets. The exec also underscored that the “pillars of trust” includes ensuring that the USDC ecosystem remained under the governance of the highest level of regulatory and prudential standards.

While stating that the commitment to openness, competition, and responsible financial services innovation remains a foundation for both the Centre Consortium and Circle, Allaire went on to add,

“Providing assurances demonstrated by reserve attestations issued by Grant Thornton, one of the world’s leading accounting firms, that dollar-denominated assets can meet circulation for USDC outstanding. Core economic activities underpinning USDC are built inside the perimeter of the U.S. financial system, and not outside of it.”

Circle’s future plans for USDC

Allaire revealed pondering over different mechanisms to share this in an on-chain, Oracle-linked format while developing and publishing comprehensive analytics on the core liquidity profile of USD Coin, such as the history of creation and redemption behaviour associated with market conditions.

As the stabkecoin issuer moves ahead with its ambitious plans with the upcoming transition to a public company, Circle aims to enhance opportunities for greater transparency, accountability and disclosure around its wider business and functions. Collectively, Allaire asserted that this expanding public accountability can, in fact, aid in enhancing trust in Circle, the USDC stablecoin and ventures building on the standards and market infrastructure that the team has been generating over the past several years.

Stablecoins facilitated an astonishing $1.7T in transaction volume in Q2: Messari

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Stablecoins are non-volatile assets that mostly remained got fresh attention this month after the USDC issuer, Circle revealed its plan to list on the New York Stock Exchange, that too on the same day, when China’s central bank warned about these tokens citing serious risks to global financial systems.

The price of the cryptocurrencies might have taken a backseat, but the transaction volume of stablecoins has remained widely unfazed. According to Messari’s latest report, these tokens saw impressive growth in Q2 this year. In fact, this cohort of cryptocurrencies reportedly facilitated an unprecedented $1.7 trillion in transaction volume, an increase of 1,090% year-over-year and 59% since Q1.

Messari’s Senior Research Analyst, Ryan Watkins noted,

“The stablecoins story continues to rhyme each subsequent quarter – climbing up and to the right.”

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Stablecoins facilitated an astonishing $1.7T in transaction volume in Q2: Messari 9

USDT’s dwindling market dominance paves the way for other stablecoins

Watkins also mentioned that the stablecoin monetary base climbed above $107 billion in the second quarter of the year, and was 70% since the first quarter in addition to raking in 803% year-over-year. While Tether [USDT] still leads the figures, its dominance has been dwindling of late, owing to serious controversies that have damaged its reputation. As a result, USDC, BUSD, and DAI have been on a rapid increase. So much so that their market share has applied by 23%, 9%, and 5%, respectively.

USDC, for one, has experienced a tremendous leg up in Q2. Currently, more than 50% of the total supply now sits in smart contracts which is almost equivalent to $12.5 billion. While this share is not as high as DAI, USDC still leads by a wide margin in terms of dollars.

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Stablecoins facilitated an astonishing $1.7T in transaction volume in Q2: Messari 10

In addition to that, Messari also observed that the decentralized stablecoins have also maintained a consistent upward trajectory. Fortunately, decentralized tokens such as DAI’s continue to win share from centralized stablecoins. At the beginning of the second quarter, the decentralized ones surged to an all-time high of almost 10% of the total stablecoin supply.

Besides, DAI remained the market leader this quarter with a 61% share of the market. Interestingly, its share had taken a hit in Q1 due to Terra’s rise.

USDC on Tron Blockchain Hits $111 Million 4 days after expansion

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USDC activity on the Tron [TRX] blockchain has hit a milestone already. As per the latest stats on Tronscan, the world’s second-largest stablecoin’s circulating supply reached $111.68 million on the 4th of July.

This news comes just four days after CENTRE, the consortium run by cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase and payments firm Circle, announced that USDC will be implemented on Tron, Avalanche, Celo, Flow, Hedera, Kava, Nervos, Polkadot, Stacks, and Tezos. Circle CEO, Jeremy Allaire had earlier noted,

“TRON has built a very large and highly successful blockchain platform and network, and is one of the most widely used in stablecoin transactions. We’re excited to bring the benefits of a trusted dollar digital currency such as USDC to this growing ecosystem of users and developers.”

Growing Tron’s appeal and USDC’s dominance

It is important to note that USDC has experienced unprecedented activity over the last few quarters. Reports have also gone on to state that it could soon become a dominant stablecoin on the Ethereum network. It has emerged as one of the most preferred stablecoin in the decentralized finance [DeFi] sector. To top that, over 50% of USDC supply currently rests in smart contracts which totals up to almost 12.5 billion. Additionally, Tether’s growing legal woes also deviated users from turning to USDC, which could be attributed to the leading stablecoin slowly losing grip.

Meanwhile, this new achievement on the TRX blockchain could also signify that the market players are increasingly seeking other blockchains that facilitate transactions at a much cheaper and significantly faster pace than Ethereum. Besides, the TRX blockchain has already seen rapid growth for USDT, on its network. As a matter of fact, USDT on Justin Sun’s blockchain has recently surpassed that on Ethereum.

In short, USDC’s growing dominance in the market has coincided with Tron’s growing appeal as a critical alternative to the Ethereum network.

Tron among 10 blockchain platforms stablecoin USDC plans to expand

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Tron has been chosen as one of the ten blockchain platforms that Centre has enabled its members to issue the stablecoin USDC. Center is a consortium that is operated by cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase and payments firm Circle. Initially launched on the Ethereum blockchain, USDC was slowly expanded across other platforms such as Algorand, Stellar, and Solana chains in late 2020.

Apart from Tron, USDC will now be implemented on Avalanche, Celo, Flow, Hedera, Kava, Nervos, Polkadot, Stacks, and Tezos. The official press release of the stablecoin issuer read,

“From inception, our vision was to support USDC on multiple blockchain platforms. Bringing USDC to multiple chains enables users to take advantage of the speed, scalability and cost efficiency provided by next generation public chains.”

The latest move by Center is touted be the extensive expansion of the leading stablecoin as it eclipsed the eight blockchains that support the market leader, Tether’s USDT, which boasts a market cap of more than $62 billion. Over the past couple of months, USDC has witnessed massive growth especially due to unprecedented rally in the cryptocurrency market. The expansion comes in the heels of USDC surpassing the $25 billion market cap for the first time ever.

Following the development, Tron Foundation CEO, Justin Sun tweeted,

“Stablecoins will continue to play an important role and thrive in the cryptocurrency market, and TRC20-USDC’s roadmap and development on TRON is most definitely something to keep an eye on!”

Tron as a popular alternative

Tron also hosts USDT which has seen equally explosive growth in the past quarter. Another biggest contributing factor that resulted in the growth of the USDT on the Tron blockchain was the frustratingly high transaction fees on Ethereum that led many market participants who often use the stablecoin during trading to leave promptly from short-term trades and lock in gains with an asset at a stabilized value.

Just last month, the stablecoin issuer Tether had released 30 billion USDT as TRC20 tokens on the Tron blockchain, which went on to become the highest amount the stablecoin has ever issued on any chain.

USDC Goes Live On Stellar’s Decentralized Exchange

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The world’s leading stablecoin backed by Circle and Coinbase, USD Coin [USDC] went live on Stellar’s decentralized exchange, on the 2nd of February. David Puth, the CEO of Centre Consortium, asserted that the partnership of Stellar and Centre would further advance the growth of USDC while strengthening the Stellar ecosystem at the same time.

According to the official announcement, at launch, the Stellar USDC was available on Stellar’s decentralized exchange, accessible to any Stellar account through integrated wallets and tradeable across Stellar’s ecosystem of over 9,000 assets which includes stablecoins such as NGNT, BRLT, ARST, EURT, TZS and ZAR.

Notably, Stellar was previously announced as an official chain of the stablecoin back in October 2020 by Stellar Development Foundation [SDF] and the Centre Consortium, which was co-founded by Circle and Coinbase. ‍

Following the announcement, Denelle Dixon, CEO and Executive Director of the Stellar Development Foundation was quoted saying,

“This integration is going to be a powerhouse for growth in the Stellar ecosystem and a catalyst towards achieving our mission of creating equitable access to the global financial system. It presents significant business opportunities for both new and existing companies to build on the respective strengths of USDC and Stellar.”

Furthermore, the latest integration also aims to benefit businesses and developers from Circle’s scale and liquidity to deliver on the kinds of products and use cases the Stellar especially with respect to cross-border payments and tokenization.

Rise in Circulation of USDC Tokens

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USDC Goes Live On Stellar's Decentralized Exchange 12

USDC was first developed on Ethereum blockchain but with the partnership, Stellar has become the fourth blockchain to support the stablecoin.

Besides, owing to the wider adoption of the cryptocurrency over the last couple of months, stablecoins in circulation have exploded at an astonishing rate. Moreover, the number of USDC tokens in circulation also saw a parabolic rise of more than ten-fold over the last 12 months. Most notably, the stablecoin gained momentum after July when prices of Bitcoin and altcoins picked up the pace.

At the time of writing, USDC’s market cap was found to be at $5.93 billion.