USDC transaction volume exceeded $7 trillion last year

What’s new? According to Circle, a company that issues the USDC stablecoin, last year the volume of global settlements using the asset exceeded $7 trillion. At the same time, the amount of transactions conducted by payment companies Visa and Mastercard totaled $14 trillion. The company notes that blockchain infrastructure can also provide greater economic efficiency, and in the coming years, “millions of businesses and billions of people” will start turning to regulated blockchain-based financial services, leading to trillions of dollars flowing into the cryptocurrency sector.

Circle’s article

What else is known? Circle vice presidents Spencer Spinnell and Rachel Mayer write that globally, 1,7 billion people lack access to banking services, with two-thirds of them owning smartphones. Just as the Internet has democratized access to information, publicly available blockchains can turn Internet-connected smartphones into access points to innovative financial services that completely disrupt traditional processes and bureaucracy, the top executives write.

The USDC stablecoin issued by Circle is the second most capitalized asset in its segment and seventh in the overall ranking of cryptocurrencies. On December 12, its capitalization exceeded $24 billion, while it has decreased by 46% since the beginning of the year.

The sharp drop in the index began in March amid the US banking crisis that led to the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), where Circle kept part of its USDC reserves. Although Circle managed to gain access to the funds, the decline in the index continued, with the company itself blaming US regulators.

Circle then completely excluded US Treasuries from USDC reserves. Despite the difficulties with the banks, the company’s revenues in the first half of 2023 exceeded revenues for the full year 2022.

In April, the company launched the Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol (CCTP) for transferring USDC between blockchains. In September, it introduced the Perimeter open-source protocol for credit markets for tokenized assets. And in October, it launched a smart contract platform for simplified application development.