Binance and Circle partner on USDC stablecoin to incorporate products

World's largest crypto platform by trade volume plans to make stablecoin more available across its products that include payments

Richard Teng, chief executive of Binance, and Jeremy Allaire, chief executive of Circle, at Abu Dhabi Finance Week. Victor Besa / The National

Binance and Circle have entered into a strategic partnership around USDC to incorporate the stablecoin into products that can be used locally.

Circle chief executive Jeremy Allaire made the announcement with Binance chief Richard Teng on stage at ADGM's Abu Dhabi Finance Week on Wednesday. The deal is expected to expand adoption of the digital asset across broader financial services and the greater ecosystem.

“This is going to change the way money moves in the whole world," said Mr Allaire. USDCs are widely used in about 150 countries but are in the very early days of mainstream use globally, he added.

Aiding in that endeavour, Binance plans to make the decentralised US Dollar Coin (USDC) more available across its suite of products, which includes payments along with trading and saving, that reaches more than 240 million global users, according to the crypto platform.

USDC transactions, which can vary drastically in speed and take from seconds to up to around 20 minutes to process, are gaining greater adoption globally and have the potential to enable greater speeds and lower fees for cross-border payments, said Mr Allaire.

"We see the use of USDCs moving around the world the same way that we see the use of emails or messages moving around. I think in five years from now, the whole process of cross-border payments will be like the process of cross-border emails," he said, taking a matter of seconds.

Circle, whose USDC stablecoin is pegged to the dollar and manages about $40 billion in circulation, will additionally work with Binance to develop key relationships across the global financial and regulatory landscape, in addition to providing technology and liquidity tools.

Mr Allaire said what Circle finds in Binance is a "trusted client", who together can gain deeper integration into the banking sector and global financial infrastructure.

Mr Teng said that there is a need for "more governments to embrace this sector". Speaking at Abu Dhabi's financial centre about his previous employer at the Financial Services Regulatory Authority, he said ADGM was one of the first in the world to support the crypto agenda.

This will be carried further, he added, as a more crypto-friendly president will enter the White House in January, with the election of Donald Trump.

Mr Trump has introduced several pro-friendly crypto proposals, such as building a strategic Bitcoin reserve and a crypto advisory council.

Mr Teng said that if the US does set up a crypto reserve, this will help boost global adoption and open the door for a wider population. "Stablecoins are an important part of financial inclusion," he added.

Mr Trump's rally is believed to have helped Bitcoin surpass $100,000 for the first time last week, in a historic milestone as his election win continues to give momentum and positive sentiment to the idea of using decentralised currencies of all kinds.

His nomination of cryptocurrency advocate Paul Atkins to run the Securities and Exchange Commission is considered a major win for digital assets and their transactions across the world.