$USDC

✅ Current USDC Major Use Cases (Mid-2025)

1. Core Stable Asset in DeFi Protocols

• As collateral for lending platforms (such as Aave, Compound).

• Providing liquidity pairs on DEXs (Uniswap, Curve, Balancer).

• Commonly used in stablecoin pools (such as USDC/DAI/USDT) to earn transaction fee revenue and liquidity mining rewards.

👉 USDC is one of the most widely used stablecoins in L2s like Ethereum, Arbitrum, and Optimism.

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2. Cross-Chain Transfers and Bridging

• Using protocols like LayerZero, Wormhole, Axelar to transfer from the Ethereum chain to other chains like Solana, Base, Polygon.

• Circle launched a native cross-chain protocol [CCTP (Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol)] that allows USDC to be natively burned and minted, reducing the risks of traditional bridging.

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3. Web3 Payments and Business Integration

• Several Web3 applications have supported using USDC as a payment currency (such as Magic Eden, OpenSea).

• Traditional e-commerce platforms like Shopify and Visa have started integrating Circle API to accept USDC.

• USDC on Solana is widely used for instant payments and in-game currency for GameFi.

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4. Institutional Use and Reserve Asset

• USDC is issued by Circle and in partnership with Coinbase, backed by complete U.S. financial reports and audits.

• High stability and transparency, used by some DAOs and Web3 protocols as treasury reserve assets (for example, MakerDAO converting part of its DAI reserves to USDC).