In a surprising announcement, Circle revealed this week its decision to begin phasing out USDC support on the Tron Blockchain immediately.
While for now, only the issuance of new USDC on the Tron network is affected, and redemptions remain possible for the foreseeable future, it is expected that USDC_Tron infrastructure will see a rapid decline across the wider ecosystem.
The move by Circle is especially surprising as the team behind USDC has significantly ramped up its efforts to gain market share in Asia over the past year.
In Asian markets, USDT_Tron (Tether) remains “the standard,” dominating the industry and overshadowing any alternative stablecoins and networks in terms of usage.
Tether, the company behind USDT, has recently been revealed as the world’s most profitable company per capita.
The pie that the two giants, Tether and Circle, are fighting over is certainly a very juicy one. With the upcoming “bull run,” it is expected that the heat in the stablecoin wars will intensify once more.
Regarding the impact on BitcoinVN users of USDC:
All other supported networks will remain accessible as ever for using your USDC to cash in or cash out via your favorite Vietnamese exchange platform.
In fact, we recently added support for USDC_optimism for transactions in either direction.
You can currently still cash out your USDC_Tron via BitcoinVN (no sign-up required!). However, we expect support to end over the coming months as well.
In 2023, USDT still dominated our exchange volume and was used by an order of magnitude more than USDC.
While USDC has a strong foothold in the North American and partially European markets, Asia has long been dominated and seized by Tether.
However, Circle is committed to taking the fight to Asia with the establishment of their new Singapore HQ for Asian expansion.
Will Circle be able to meaningfully challenge the primacy of Tether in the big game for global stablecoin supremacy?
One thing is for certain:
Our team will regularly report on the market situation for stablecoins in Asia, including public and private data and insights from our exchange platform and OTC trade desk.
