Crypto exchange Binance has joined forces with USDC-issuer Circle to expand the stablecoin ecosystem globally. The companies announced the development along the sidelines of the ongoing Abu Dhabi Finance Week on Wednesday, December 11. With this partnership, Binance claimed, it wishes to testify to the evolving on-chain financial sector. As for Circle, its USDC stablecoin (pegged against the US dollar) could see adoption among Binance users – especially at a time when countries like China and Russia are accelerating efforts to reduce reliance on financial settlements relying on the US fiat currency.

In a press release, Binance said it will adopt the USDC stablecoin to maintain its own treasury. The exchange crossed the 200 million user mark in June. As part of this partnership, Binance said it will roll out more trading pairs that include the USDC stablecoin.

“Our users will have even more opportunities to use USDC on our platform, including special promotions on USDC across trading and other products on Binance. We will also work closely with Circle to drive innovation and utility for stablecoins globally,” said Binance CEO Richard Teng in a prepared statement.

Launched in October 2018, the USD Coin (USDC) trades at the ratio of 1:1 with the US dollar. Presently, its total circulating supply stands at over 40.8 billion tokens – bringing its market valuation also to $40.87 billion (roughly Rs. 346 crore). As per data shown by CoinMarketCap, USDC is the sixth most valued crypto asset.

Circle recently became the first stablecoin issuer to comply with regulations in Canada. This means, that the USDC stablecoin is officially available for Canadian citizens to invest in and hold. In addition, Circle also holds operational licences in the EU as well as the US.

Commenting on its partnership with Binance, Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire said, “this is a tremendous opportunity for USDC as it becomes ubiquitous on Binance.”

“Through this partnership, Binance will make USDC more extensively available across their full suite of products and services, ensuring that their more than 240 million global users are able to seamlessly access and use USDC for trading, saving and payments applications,” he said in a post on X.

As part of the deal, Circle will give Binance and its users access to specially designed fintech tools that have been developed to boost security and adoption of the USDC stablecoin. The company has yet to provide details about the software that be provided to users.