Written and originally published on December 29th, 2024.

Stargate has deployed bridged USDC following the Bridged USDC standard, available via Hydra, which addresses the persistent issue of USDC fragmentation by creating a unified, cross-chain stablecoin experience. This solution ensures seamless interoperability, scalability, and liquidity across chains, while providing a potential future-proof pathway for adopting native USDC.

Stargate V2’s Hydra

Hydra is a scalable Bridging-as-a-Service (BaaS) solution launched by Stargate in May 2024, designed to enable pre-native asset (e.g. USDC.e) ecosystems to adopt natively backed assets for seamless integration and use across chains.

How it works:

• Users lock their native assets (e.g. USDC) in Stargate pools on any chain with Native USDC.

• A 1:1 equivalent of the asset (e.g. USDC.e) is minted on the HydraChain.

• When transferring to another chain, the Bridged USDC is burned, and an equivalent amount of the native asset is received on the user’s chosen destination chain with Native USDC.

Hydra ensures scalability, liquidity, and interoperability for DeFi across multiple chains while maintaining a simple and seamless user experience. For more information head over to Stargate’s technical documentation.

Asset Fragmentation

The proliferation of multiple versions of bridged USDC across different chains and bridging solutions has persistently caused bridged USDC fragmentation. This system complicates the user experience, creates challenges for developers managing assets across chains, and increases the risk of mismanagement or token standard incompatibilities.

Stargate’s integration of the Bridged USDC standard offers the solution to bridged USDC fragmentation by providing a unified stablecoin standard for new ecosystems. This aims to provide new ecosystems with unified liquidity with a single asset, enhance cross-chain accessibility, and provide an efficient pathway for new ecosystems to adopt native USDC in the future.

As the primary stablecoin across HydraChains, bridged USDC (Stargate) will serve as the preferred USDC token standard for developers and users alike, consolidating liquidity and offering unparalleled cross-chain support. Stargate’s unique omnichain architecture enables the seamless integration of native USDC by unifying liquidity within the ecosystem under a single, canonical asset.

This new bridged USDC integration is made possible through Stargate’s unique omnichain architecture unifying USDC within that ecosystem under a single canonical contract address.

Powered by Stargate and Circle’s Bridged USDC Standard

Utilising Stargate’s interoperability infrastructure, this new solution offers a single USDC asset standard for HydraChains, removing the need for future migrations. Liquidity for this native-backed USDC will be held in Stargate’s pools, and a lock and mint function is used to facilitate the movement of native USDC from these pools to Bridged USDC (Stargate) on HydraChains.

The integration of Circle’s Bridged USDC by Stargate allows for a potential seamless upgrade to Native USDC if a mutual agreement is reached between Circle and the blockchain in the future. The upgrade to native USDC is performed in-place, giving developers and users immediate access to native USDC and avoiding any time-consuming migration.

Advantages of the Bridged USDC Standard with Stargate

The introduction of Bridged USDC Standard with Stargate as the canonical stablecoin standard across HydraChains presents significant benefits for the ecosystem:

• Future-Proof Stability: Stargate deploying its bridged USDC (Stargate) using the Bridged USDC Standard enables a seamless transition should a mutual agreement be reached to upgrade to native.

• Unified liquidity: Stargate utilises LayerZero and global accounting to simplify bringing bridged USDC liquidity to chains.

• Cross-chain flexibility: Stargate leverages its pools and LayerZero endpoints across chains to enable bridging to and from any Stargate supported chain.

• Backed 1:1 by native assets: All bridged USDC deployed by Stargate minted on HydraChains are backed 1:1 by native USDC that exist within Stargate pools on their respective Chains with Native USDC.

The Future of USDC on HydraChains

With Stargate’s support, chains looking for bridged asset support can benefit from the deployment of Bridged USDC (Stargate), providing a valuable solution to meet liquidity needs in the interim. This relationship is mutually beneficial, as it enhances liquidity options and adaptability across the ecosystem while allowing for a potential seamless upgrade to native USDC.

This integration between Stargate and Circle highlights the efforts being made in delivering streamlined, user-focused cross-chain solutions. By creating a cohesive standard for stablecoin liquidity, the integration marks a significant step forward in making DeFi more accessible, adaptable, and connected across blockchains.

Deploy Stargate Bridged USDC in Your Ecosystem — Connect with us

If you are looking to have Stargate’s Hydra and Bridged USDC deployed, you can reach out through Stargate’s Circle Alliance Program page.Alternatively feel free to reach out to the Stargate Foundation on Telegram: @stgLamps (Foundation Lead).

Stargate Finance

Stargate is the first fully composable native asset bridge and the first dApp built on LayerZero. It makes cross-chain liquidity transfer a seamless, single transaction process, empowering users to explore opportunities on more than 30blockchains. Stargate’s fully composable liquidity transport protocol lives at the heart of omnichain DeFi. With Stargate, users and dApps can transfer native assets cross-chain while accessing unified liquidity pools with instant guaranteed finality.