Circle Rolls Out Stablecoin Backed by the Euro

Circle, the firm behind the USDC stablecoin, has announced the release of the Euro Coin (EUROC), a new fiat-backed digital asset. On June 30, the new Euro Coin will debut as an ERC-20 token on the Ethereum blockchain, with more supported networks to follow later in the year.

Euro Coin is entirely backed by euro-denominated reserves “held conservatively in the custody of leading financial institutions within the U.S. regulatory perimeter, beginning with Silvergate Bank,” according to a news release from Circle. In a tweet, Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire said, “Euro Coin is being issued under a regulated framework for money transmission, under the same statutes that regulate USDC, with full-reserves in Euro,”

Euro Coin will have “the same security, liquidity, and transparency” as USDC, the industry’s second-largest stablecoin with a market valuation of $54.5 billion, according to him. USDC was most recently introduced on Polygon, an Ethereum-compatible blockchain interoperability, and scalability platform.

“Euro Coin expands opportunities for payments, on-chain FX, trade finance, commerce, and broader digital asset market use-cases,” continued Allaire. “The launch is symbolic of a shift in crypto markets towards greater and greater utility value from blockchain infrastructure.”

1/ CIRCLE LAUNCHES EURO COIN: Today, we announced our 2nd major fiat-backed stablecoin, Euro Coin, which went live on Ethereum mainnet, and will be available to mint and redeem on June 30th. https://t.co/vPZkItL0Fu

— Jeremy Allaire (@jerallaire) June 16, 2022

Euro Coin will be available to non-Circle users on crypto exchanges like Binance.US, Bitstamp, FTX, and Huobi Global, as well as prominent decentralized finance (Defi) protocols like Compound, Curve, and Uniswap, once trading begins, according to the company’s blog post.
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Anchorage Digital, CYBAVO, and Fireblocks are among the other partners, as are hardware wallets Ledger and MetaMask Institutional, an institution-compliant version of the popular DeFi wallet.

“There is clear market demand for a digital currency denominated in euros, the world’s second most traded currency after the U.S. dollar,” said Circle’s CEO Jeremy Allaire.

Although Circle’s euro-backed stablecoin is set to arrive at the end of the month, the firm has announced that developers can begin integrating with the Euro Coin smart contract today, ahead of the official launch.

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