TechFlow news — Circle, the issuer of the stablecoin USDC, has announced the introduction of the Bridged USDC Standard.
The Bridged USDC Standard is a set of specifications and procedures for deploying bridged forms of USDC on EVM-compatible blockchains. It enables Circle to seamlessly upgrade bridged USDC to natively issued USDC by securely transferring ownership of the bridged USDC token contract to Circle through a standardized and audited process. The standard is a permissionless and fair option available to any EVM blockchain and rollup team, offering features such as standardization, scalability, and security with audit guarantees.
The bridging process works as follows:
- A third-party team deploys a bridged USDC token contract according to the standard.
- The bridged USDC is used to bootstrap initial liquidity and then gains wider adoption.
- The bridged USDC achieves significant supply, holder base, and application integrations.
- Circle and the third-party team jointly decide to securely transfer ownership of the bridged USDC token contract to Circle.
- Upon ownership transfer, Circle upgrades the bridged USDC to native USDC, preserving supply, holders, and integrations without disruption.
The benefit of this in-place upgrade is that contract addresses, user balances, and application integrations are all preserved, ensuring a seamless experience for developers and users while avoiding the learning curve and fragmentation typically associated with liquidity migration processes.
