Privately held Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, has formed a partnership with stablecoin giant Circle to accelerate global adoption of the USDC stablecoin.
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Under terms of the partnership, Circle’s USDC stablecoin will become available to Binance’s more than 200 million customers globally for trading, savings, and payments. Binance will also adopt the second-largest stablecoin for its own corporate treasury, according to the two companies.
The partnership with Binance comes as Circle, which has $40 billion worth of USDC in circulation, tries to catch its bigger rival Tether, whose rival USDT stablecoin has a market capitalization of $140 billion. Stablecoins are cryptocurrencies whose underlying value is pegged to another asset, typically the U.S. dollar or gold.
Buying and Selling Crypto
Typically, stablecoins are used as a tool for buying and selling other cryptocurrencies. In a written statement announcing the partnership, Jeremy Allaire, Chairman of Circle, said: “With stablecoin adoption and utility at the core of the future financial system, this is a tremendous opportunity for USDC.”
Circle markets itself as offering a more regulated stablecoin than Tether and complying with global regulations pertaining to cryptocurrencies. As it is pegged to the American dollar, the USDC stablecoin trades at $1 and its price seldom fluctuates.
Is Bitcoin a Buy?
Given the static nature of stablecoins, we will instead look at Bitcoin (BTC), the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization. Most Wall Street firms don’t offer ratings or price targets on Bitcoin, so we’ll look at the cryptocurrency’s three-month performance. As one can see in the chart below, the price of BTC has risen 66% in the last 12 weeks, which is a solid result.
