Circle Drops TRON: Network Unfazed by Loss of USDC Support

Users of the TRON blockchain network will no longer be able to use USDC natively. The announcement was made by Circle in a blog post earlier this week when the company also stopped minting the token on TRON.

Circle advised retail investors to have their USDC moved to an exchange or platform that allows them to have it transferred to another network. Institutional investors using Circle Mint are already not able to transfer their TRON USDC to external wallets and will require assistance directly from Circle.

Bye, Bye TRON Network

The details for Circle to support native support for TRON are not yet known, as the company didn’t provide any specific details. However, everything indicated the company no longer believes in the network’s reliability, stating that its mission aligned with its mission to maintain USDC “trusted, transparent and safe”.

The announcement also highlights the company’s efforts to “continually assess the suitability of all blockchains where USDC is supported” as part of its “risk management framework”. Despite not being one of the top 5 networks to support USDC natively, TRON had a larger share than other supported networks like Stellar, Algorand, Flow, and Hedera, suggesting that popularity is not the issue.

With over $28 billion in circulation, USDC is the second largest stablecoin in the crypto ecosystem, second only to Tether with $97 billion. Most of the total supply of USDC exists in the Ethereum network, which accounts for 82% of the total supply. TRON, on the other hand, only accounts for 1.06% at the time of writing, which is a reduction of around 26% over the past week.

TRON Remains Stable

Despite the popularity of USDC as a stablecoin, Circle’s drop in native support for the network didn’t have the impact many would have expected. Despite fears of a drop after the announcement, TRON’s TRX token has seen its value rise over the days following it.

TRON remains as a popular destination among crypto investors and stablecoin users due to its low fees, fast processing time, and widespread support. In fact, the network has been one of the projects to see its token benefit the most from the recent recovery of the market, with a growth of over 29% in the past month.

When it comes to Tether’s USDT, TRON accounts for 50.69% of the total supply, making it one of the most dominant networks in the stablecoin ecosystem. Tether told Cointelegraph that it “actively monitors the safety of each one of the supported transport layers” when asked if the firm planned to drop TRON support.

USDC Continues to Expand

Despite its decision to leave TRON, Circle has recently resumed its efforts to expand USDC’s presence in the crypto ecosystem. USDC officially launched on the Celo mainnet back on Thursday, which already has a supply of around $11.6M at the time of writing.

1/ It’s official. $USDC is now available on @Celo mainnet!

Learn about the benefits of USDC and what it means for the Celo ecosystem ????https://t.co/FIPEzAVuEm

— Circle (@circle) February 22, 2024

The firm cited the existence of a strong ecosystem of Risk-Weighted Assets (RWA) and “fast-growing dApps&projects”, as well as a “global, mobile-first usage base” as the reasons for the decision. The network has also recently submitted a proposal to have USDC work as its native gas currency, which would boost Stablecoin’s use and the network’s adoption.

Circle has also redoubled its efforts to gain a bigger share of the web3 wallet market, launching its Programmable Wallets Web SDK. Through the kit, Circle seeks to make it easier for developers to integrate Circle’s “user-controlled wallet experience” into their web projects.

In addition to making the use of web3 wallets more accessible to new users by abstracting them, Circle’s programmable wallets also seek to improve security. This is done by encrypting both the PIN and security answers needed to access them, all while offering powerful customization options.

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