Circle has officially announced that its euro stablecoin, EURC, is now also available on Base.
Circle Mint and its APIs support the minting and redemption of EURC on Base for financial institutions.
EURC: the stablecoin by Circle still pegged to the euro
EURC is a stablecoin backed by the euro issued by Circle.
Initially, it was issued on the blockchain of Ethereum, but now it is also available on other chains.
This is specifically a regulated stablecoin, so much so that it has also been approved in the EU according to the criteria of the new European crypto regulation, the MiCA.
With the landing on Base, transactions will be faster, but above all much cheaper, thus offering a faster, more convenient, and more accessible version of fiat currency.
The objective is to help companies and developers facilitate faster and more economical global trade.
EURC is not yet widely used.
It landed on the crypto markets a little over two years ago. During 2022, it reached a market capitalization of over 80 million dollars, but after the collapse of FTX, it ended up falling below 30 million.
In 2023 it had risen to almost 60 million dollars in capitalization, but since April of this year it has started a new decline down to below 40 million.
Obviously, being a stablecoin on the euro, its price is always around 1€, while in dollars it follows the variations of the euro itself.
The Base network
Base is the layer-2 on Ethereum developed by Coinbase.
The same Circe collaborates with Coinbase for the introduction of its stablecoins into the crypto market, so the relationship between these two entities is quite close.
Although Base is not the most decentralized layer-2 out there, it is absolutely one of the most economical for Ethereum.
It is mainly used by Coinbase users, but its trail has already managed to gather more than 1.6 billion dollars of TL in DeFi, placing it in sixth place overall in this metric ahead of chains like Avalanche and Polygon.
It is worth noting that the Base chain was launched only last year, so it has already come a long way in the DeFi field.
Its strength lies in the very low fees, so much so that, for example, at this moment with less than a thousandth of a dollar, a simple transaction can be approved in relatively quick times. It is therefore not surprising that it is handling more than 3 million transactions per day.
Last year Circle launched its stablecoin on the dollar (USDC) on Base, and in a short time it became the most used stablecoin on this chain with over 3.0 billion dollars in circulation.
The Circle company
Circle is best known for being the issuer of USDC, the second largest stablecoin in the world.
Although last year USDC briefly lost the peg with the dollar, due to the failure of one of the banks where part of the dollars used as collateral were deposited, it then easily recovered and maintained it, thanks to the intervention of the United States central bank (Fed).
It is worth noting that USDC, along with EURC, were the first major stablecoins to achieve full compliance with the new EU MiCA crypto regulation.
Circle is the second largest issuer of stablecoin in the world, and it is recognized by the EU as an issuer of e-money token, unlike Tether which has not yet obtained such recognition.
The comment on the launch of Circle EURC stablecoin on the euro on Base
The creator of Base, Jesse Pollak, stated:
“The launch of EURC on Base by Circle is an important step towards upgrading the traditional financial system and creating a new global onchain economy. Stablecoins bring enormous benefits and innovation to businesses and consumers, and provide better access to financial services for the unbanked. They also make it easier for everyone, everywhere, to conduct cross-border transactions. We are excited that EURC is launching a reliable EURO stablecoin on Base and believe it is a fundamental next step for the growth of the onchain economy”.
The competition
The most used euro stablecoin is EURS by Statis.
This is absolutely one of the first euro stablecoins, launched even in 2018.
Over the years, its market capitalization has practically always risen, and now it exceeds 134 million dollars.
Starting from 2021, Tether’s EURT was also launched, which in 2022 recorded a real boom, surpassing 220 million dollars in market capitalization.
However, since Tether is not yet recognized as an issuer of e-money tokens in the EU, during 2024 the capitalization of EURT collapsed below 31 million dollars, given that in the event of non-recognition by the EU as an e-money token, according to MiCA regulations, it practically cannot be used by exchanges.
It is however still possible that in the end Tether manages to obtain recognition as an issuer of e-money token, and that EURT in the end can return to being widely used even in EU countries.