Circle and Noble bring native USDC to Cosmos via CCTP
USDC’s CCTP is coming to Cosmos, and it’s already live on testnet
FOTOGRIN/Shutterstock modified by Blockworks
Native USDC on Cosmos is getting an upgrade.
Circle, the issuer of USDC, announced today at the Cosmoverse conference that the company will implement its cross-chain transfer protocol (CCTP) with Noble, a Cosmos-based token protocol.
Circle’s engineering director Marcus Boorstin demonstrated the use of CCTP for USDC transfers on the Cosmoverse main stage, moving funds in a testnet environment from Avalanche to Noble using Metamask.
This will be the first time CCTP is integrated with a non-Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) chain, Boorstin said.
Noble co-founder Jelena Djuric noted that simplicity is a key feature of the design, with USDC transfers possible in “basically one-click.”
As Noble itself is integrated with the Cosmos Inter-blockchain communication protocol (IBC), CCTP’s functionality will be extended to all Cosmos chains that are connected to IBC, removing the need for bridges when transacting USD Coin (USDC).
Additionally, users who currently own USDC on EVM chains can send their tokens to Cosmos chains that are integrated with IBC without using a bridge, Noble co-founder Stefan Coolican told Blockworks.
“What you’ll be able to do with CCTP when it’s live is you’ll be able to send it to a burn address on Ethereum, where Circle’s API is watching and will issue an attestation of burn that gets relayed to the destination chain,” Coolican said.
“It’s a fast, cost-efficient way of getting native USDC into whatever application you’re building on Cosmos,” Coolican added.
A testnet will be available for ecosystem participants who are eager to test out CCTP’s cross-chain functionality, ahead of the official mainnet later this month.
USDC is currently the second-largest stablecoin by market cap, and it currently has a circulating supply of almost $25 billion, according to DeFiLama. Roughly $20 billion of this amount is on Ethereum. The Cosmos ecosystem itself does not currently have a large stablecoin market. It has been live on Cosmos mainnet since September 12.
“Noble’s role as an asset issuance hub for Cosmos enables USDC to proliferate seamlessly throughout the ecosystem via IBC,” Rachel Mayer, VP of product at Circle, told Blockworks. “With CCTP coming to Noble, we’re able to solve interoperability for Cosmos with Ethereum and several other blockchain networks, enabling developers to onboard users with USDC to their appchains from outside the ecosystem.”
Updated Oct. 3, 2023 at 6:27 am with additional context.
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