BCB Group – a firm that provides financial services for cryptocurrency firms in the U.K. and European Union – has inked a deal to integrate with Circle's platform to make the USDC stablecoin available to institutional clients.
- Announced Thursday, the partnership will see BCB add elements of Circle's crypto finance platform in an attempt to improve the efficiency of payments, clearing and custody for business customers.
- The move means BCB's clients will gain access to USDC, the U.S. dollar-linked stablecoin launched by the CENTRE Consortium, which was founded by Circle and Coinbase in October 2018.
- USDC can help EU-based companies "mitigate negative risk" exposure by providing secure and efficient payments solutions, BCB said in a statement.
- According to Circle's co-founder and CEO, Jeremy Allaire, demand for dollar-pegged stablecoins is quickly growing and USDC would provide "critical" infrastructure for BCB's clients.
- USDC moved close to 1.1 billion coins in circulation in July 2020, according to CoinMarketCap, with numbers having sharply risen since late March.
- It still has a way to go to catch up on the most used stablecoin, tether (USDT), which now boasts a circulating supply close to 10 billion.
- Circle recently teamed with Genesis Trading in a $25 million deal also aimed at boosting adoption of USDC. Like CoinDesk, Genesis is a fully owned Digital Currency Group subsidiary.