Optimism, Circle partnership brings native USDC to OP Mainnet

• Optimism and USDC issuer Circle have announced native support for USDC on OP Mainnet.
• The partnership is expected to spur institutional on and off-ramps for Optimism.

Optimism will soon have native support for USDC, the stablecoin issued by Circle. The development follows a partnership between the Ethereum layer 2 blockchain network and Circle, per details of the announcement.

We’re excited to be partnering with @circle to bring native $USDC to OP Mainnet, further enabling institutional on and off-ramps to and from Optimism.

References to Ethereum-bridged USDC will be changed to USDC.e in order to distinguish it from native USDC. https://t.co/r8lIQhJd3Z

— Optimism (✨🔴_🔴✨) (@optimismFND) August 30, 2023

USDC liquidity to boost Optimism ecosystem

USDC’s native access on the Optimism blockchain becomes the official form of the stablecoin for the network. This form of USDC liquidity will eventually replace the Ethereum-bridged USDC, which will in the meantime be labelled as USDC-e on block explorers.

According to Circle, the launch of its stablecoin natively on the Optimism mainnet allows users to access a dollar-backed token “that’s fully reserved and always redeemable 1:1 for US dollars.” It also brings to users institutional on and off-ramps, a factor likely to boost the broader Optimism ecosystem. Circle helped achieve the same with native USDC launch on Arbitrum in June, and recently on Base.

Price reaction to the news has largely been muted, with OP trading near $1.48 and down 0.5% in the past 24 hours. At the time of writing, data from CoinGecko showed OP price has fluctuated between $1.41 and $1.59 in the past week, currently down 5.3% during this timeline.