Circle's USD Coin (USDC) has officially launched on both the Base and Optimism networks, allowing Circle account holders to send the stablecoin from their accounts to either network.

According to a September 5 social media post, Coinbase has also made USDC transactions to Base possible. Circle stated that it is working with "ecosystem partners" to create a system that will allow users to exchange old, bridged versions of USDC for new, official versions.

Coinbase's Base network launched on August 9, although Coinbase users and Circle account holders could not send USDC to the Base network from their exchange accounts at the time. To make US dollar transactions, base users relied on a bridging version of USDC known as "USDbC."

Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire declared on August 29 that a native version of USDC would be released "next week," but no specific date was mentioned.

According to the release on September 5, the coin is now available natively on Base. On the same day, the Coinbase interface began to provide a transfer USDC to Base option.

Despite the formal introduction, many decentralized exchanges on the network still use the old coin. When users select the stablecoin, Uniswap, BaseSwap, Aerodrome, Maverick, and others continue to display the old contract address at the time of writing.

According to the release, USDC has also been launched on Optimism, serving as a replacement for the USDC.e token that was previously utilized on the network. Optimism DEXs, like Base, do not appear to have been integrated with the latest version yet.

Sources:

https://cointelegraph.com/news/usd-coin-expands-base-optimism-networks

https://www.cryptopolitan.com/usd-coin-expands-ecosystem-on-base-optimism-networks/