USD coin issuer and digital fintech firm Circle is now set to expand its Euro Coin and cross-chain transfer protocol to the Solana ecosystem in the first half of 2023.

The Euro Coin is a euro-backed stablecoin issued by Circle in June. Unlike its counterpart, the USDC coin, which is pegged to dollars, the Euro Coin is pegged to the euro. Currently, the euro coin is active on the Ethereum blockchain, and by Q1 2023 it will also be active on the Solana blockchain.

According to Sheraz Shere, Head of Payments at Solana Labs, the launch of the euro coin at Solana creates new use cases for instant FX, design optionality for merchants with a new base currency, and enables borrowing and borrowing of euro coins. on a blockchain. Euro currency will be available alongside USDC as a payment currency in Solana Pay.

Exchanges like FTX will add Euro Coin support deposits, withdrawals and trading when it goes live on Solana. Additionally, Solana-based DeFi (decentralized finance) protocols like Raydium and Solena have also shown interest in supporting the stablecoin when it launches, according to Circle.

Also, in addition to Euro Coin, another project that Circle will launch on the Solana blockchain is its cross-chain transfer protocol, which was initially announced in September. The protocol would go live in early 2023 on Ethereum and Avalanche, then expand to Solana in the first half of 2023.

The cross-chain transfer protocol enables the native transfer of USDC across different blockchains instead of using wrapped tokens. The Wormhole interoperability platform plans to support the implementation of the cross-chain transfer protocol once it is live on the Solana blockchain.

Speaking of Circle, the firm recently revealed that it has established a new reserve fund called Circle Reserve Funds with black rock to help manage your stablecoin reserves.

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