USDC as a Platform for Global Prosperity

‍Coinbase provides a trusted platform that makes it easy for people and institutions to engage with digital assets, including trading, staking, safekeeping, spending, and fast, free global transfers. USDC plays a major role at Coinbase, comprising a significant share of trading liquidity and collateral. In 2023, Coinbase launched Base, an Ethereum Layer 2 blockchain that enables USDC transactions in less than a second, at a cost of less than a penny. This year, Base saw notable adoption growth and USDC — as the leading stablecoin on Base — was a key part of that surge. Coinbase also offers a range of other services that can make it easy for more people to access and start using USDC.

With a focus on developing products and services for the institutional digital assets sector, Bullish has rewired the traditional exchange to benefit asset holders, enable traders and increase market transparency. Supported by the group’s well capitalized treasury, Bullish’s centralized exchange combines a high-performance central limit order book (CLOB) with proprietary automated market making technology to deliver deep liquidity and tight spreads — all within a compliant and regulated framework.

Launched in November 2021, the exchange is available in 50+ select jurisdictions in Asia Pacific, Europe, Africa, and Latin America. Bullish operates as a full-reserve exchange, and prioritizes compliance and safeguarding customer assets through robust security measures and regulatory oversight. Bullish exchange is operated by Bullish (GI) Limited and is regulated by the Gibraltar Financial Services Commission. Bullish introduced USDC in 2021 and currently lists more than 50 USDC trading pairs across spot and derivatives markets.

One of the largest and most successful protocols in decentralized finance (DeFi), dYdX was founded by Antonio Juliano in 2017 and originally introduced on Ethereum mainnet, before building a Layer 2 scaling solution with Starkware, an Ethereum Layer 2, in 2020. Recognizing the need for lower fees and faster speeds, dYdX began exploring alternate infrastructure and in 2023 relaunched their services on Cosmos, a highly modular ecosystem that makes it possible for services like dYdX to build and operate their own blockchain. Every trade made on dYdX settles near-instantly in USDC. Circle’s Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol (CCTP) provides an easy way for users to bring native USDC liquidity to Cosmos from other blockchain ecosystems. CCTP is a permissionless on-chain utility that facilitates USDC transfers securely between blockchains via native burning and minting. CCTP makes it simple for users to connect wallets and deposit USDC from Ethereum and other supported networks. Read more about Circle, dYdX, and Cosmos.

What they do

‍Worldpay powers businesses of all sizes to make, take, and manage payments. They are a global leader in financial technology with unique capabilities to power omni-commerce. Whether online, in-store or mobile, Worldpay is at the heart of great commerce experiences in 146 countries and across 135 currencies. They help their customers become more efficient, more secure and more successful.

How Worldpay works with Circle

In 2022, Worldpay became the first global merchant acquirer to offer direct USDC settlement, enabling merchants all around the world to tap into rising stablecoin payment volume and offer customers of crypto-native and traditional businesses with new ways to pay. Worldpay’s adoption of USDC also enables businesses to build a fit-for-purpose treasury strategy that caters to their preferred currency for conducting business. Worldpay customers are no longer constrained by payment service providers offering a fiat-only ecosystem and can instead leverage an innovative adoption of crypto payment rails to directly receive, hold, and transfer stablecoins in a fast and efficient manner. 

This year, as digital asset markets rebounded, Worldpay was well positioned to capitalize on the upswing of retail interest. In addition to enabling card-to-crypto purchases and crypto-to-card withdrawals for several major exchanges, they offer streamlined treasury management with USDC settlement. Worldpay customers can receive USDC from their customers instead of fiat and settle these funds over the weekend, outside of traditional banking hours, to help optimize working capital.

Mastercard is working with businesses and governments around the world in payments and beyond to improve the lives of the billions of people they serve. For more than 60 years, Mastercard has pioneered technology to make payments simpler, smarter and safer. Their global network enables advances in the payments ecosystem by leveraging technologies to create stronger bonds and bring more people into the digital economy. 

Mastercard’s partnership with Circle is now entering its fifth year. In 2021, Mastercard announced that it is making it easier for issuers and its Crypto Card partners to use USDC to settle obligations arising from transactions on the Mastercard network.⁵³ The same functionality was then expanded to support acquirers who want to payout merchants in USDC. Currently millions of dollars are being settled using this solution available to both issuers and acquirers. 

In addition, last year Mastercard introduced a card product construct that enables the spending of USDC held in self-custodial wallets in over 100 million locations where Mastercard is accepted.⁵⁴

Hear from our partners

Zodia Markets is the institution-first digital asset brokerage providing a wide range of services for clients across the globe, including OTC trading and on-chain FX. Born out of SC Ventures, the innovation arm of Standard Chartered, and Asia’s leading digital asset company, OSL Group; Zodia Markets supports over 50 digital assets and in excess of 20 fiat currencies. The firm’s institutional focus and unique relationship with Standard Chartered puts it at the center of corporate, cross-border payment use cases for USDC, particularly in emerging markets. Clients include multinational commodity companies and other businesses seeking accelerated growth via faster and cheaper ways to move dollars across borders.

Standard Chartered is a well-capitalized global bank that is a leading shareholder in Zodia Markets and plays a key role in the convergence of digital assets and traditional finance. With a rich history and diversified portfolio of business lines, Standard Chartered understands how to foster sustainable growth for businesses and individuals around the world. In 2023, it became one of the banks to hold a portion of the cash that backs the USDC reserve. It also helps make USDC easier to access in high demand markets by facilitating local minting in Singapore. Circle’s partnership with Standard Chartered means Zodia Markets can mint and burn USDC almost instantly, and clients have the opportunity to on- and off-ramp into global payment flows in minutes.

MoneyGram is one of the world’s leading financial technology companies, with an 80-year history of enabling people and businesses around the world to send money faster and more efficiently. Today, their services span more than 200 countries and territories and cover more than 150 million consumers who can choose how they send money — online, in their highly-rated mobile app or at one of more than 440,000 locations.

MoneyGram uses USDC on the Stellar blockchain to facilitate internet-scale dollar movement, along with the ability to cash out in 180 countries and on-ramp into USDC in more than 30 countries. In 2024, MoneyGram launched MoneyGram® Wallet, a non-custodial digital wallet that uses USDC to make peer-to-peer remittances easier. Their approach to remittances is global rather than regional, leveraging their worldwide footprint and decades of expertise. MoneyGram has already connected the U.S. with Brazil and Mexico, with plans to enable additional payments corridors in the works.

Stripe is a technology company that builds financial infrastructure for the internet. Businesses of every size — from new startups to public companies — use Stripe’s software to accept payments and manage their businesses online. Stripe’s business customers processed $1 trillion in total payment volume in 2023. One of the world’s most innovative companies, Stripe was an early crypto payments adopter. In 2022, they began offering USDC as a payout option for platforms, and in 2024 they enabled merchants to accept stablecoin payments with USDC on the Ethereum, Solana, and Polygon blockchains.

Today more than 120 million people are forcibly displaced worldwide — a figure close to the total population of Japan. Yet the outlook for forcibly displaced people is growing even more bleak, as persecution, conflict, violence, and human rights violations are increasing. 

UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, leads international action to protect people forced to flee their homes because of conflict and persecution. UNHCR delivers life-saving assistance like shelter, food, and water, helps to safeguard fundamental human rights, and develops solutions that ensure people have a safe place to call home where they can build a better future. 

Distributing aid assistance to displaced people poses acute challenges. Banking access can be impossible, especially in countries beset by war and unrest. Local currency can be unstable and hard to use outside the country where it is issued, making it less valuable for people who have been forced to find safety across borders. The risk of physical cash being lost or stolen is high, another major problem for people who lack a home base. 

As part of its humanitarian cash programs, in December 2022, UNHCR and Circle launched a program to distribute borderless digital dollars in the form of USDC to a group of people displaced by the war in Ukraine. This money is transferred via the Stellar blockchain directly into the recipient’s digital wallet, which can be accessed almost instantly via a digital wallet on their own smartphone, with fully integrated encashment solutions and in compliance with regulatory requirements.

The success of this solution in Ukraine has led to its further scaling and implementation in other geographies. In Argentina, for instance, the introduction of this blockchain-powered system can help safeguard the value of cash assistance against the country's high inflation and currency devaluation, significantly improving the purchasing power and impact of aid delivered to forcibly displaced people in Latin America.

How UNHCR works with Circle

By leveraging blockchain technology and USDC, a stablecoin issued by Circle, this solution enhances transparency for donors and traceability for humanitarian aid recipients and stakeholders. The integration of digital wallets and direct access to financial ecosystems makes aid easily accessible, even for those without traditional bank accounts. This approach empowers refugees by sustaining their livelihoods, fostering financial and digital inclusion, and enabling them to contribute to the economies of their host countries and beyond, across borders.

‍Goodwall was founded by brothers Taha and Omar Bawa, whose parents worked at the United Nations. While traveling with their parents to refugee camps, they observed disparities in opportunities and grew up motivated to close this gap. One billion people are expected to enter the workforce by 2030, with 90% from developing economies. In response to this, the brothers founded Goodwall, the company that acts as a powerful social community that connects this growing talent pool and helps them cultivate skills critical to future employment.

With more than two billion people, Gen Z is the largest generation in history, but employers and brands struggle to engage with them authentically and at scale. Goodwall offers companies from Microsoft to Accenture — along with governments and the United Nations — a platform to attract, engage, and build the Gen Z talent and consumer pipelines at scale, reaching 100M+ youth over the last 12 months. All actions from their users — picking up bottles from a beach, for example — are verified by geo-tagged photos and videos, and then rewarded on the platform.

How Goodwall works with Circle

Goodwall chose USDC to conduct payouts due to its efficiency, cost, and reach as well as the widespread demand for dollars in developing markets. The Bawa brothers reached more than 90 million people in 170 countries in 2023. Nearly 3 million people are registered to begin upleveling their career skills and earning USDC for environmental impact actions.

Launching last fall, Goodwall is collaborating with Arbitrum to implement Circle’s Programmable Wallets, aiming to bank the unbanked and connect youth worldwide to the global digital economy. Goodwall anticipates issuing USDC payments to more than 50,000 beneficiaries over the upcoming year through this initiative.