Just one year after eliminating USDC in order to focus on stablecoin liquidity, cryptocurrency platform Binance is bringing trading pairs back with the currency.
In a press statement on December 27, cryptocurrency exchange Binance said it is bringing back a select trade pairings using Circle’s USDC stablecoin.
The release states that on December 28 at 8:00 UTC, the exchange will commence trading for the spot trading pairings ADA/USDC, ARB/USDC, AVAX/USDC, DOT/USDC, INJ/USDC, MATIC/USDC, OP/USDC, ORDI/USDC, SOL/USDC, and XRP/USDC.Binance did not give a detailed explanation for the change.
Only a year has passed since Binance eliminated a collection of stablecoins, such as TrueUSD (TUSD) and Paxos Dollar (USDP), automatically converting deposits in these assets to Binance USD (BUSD).
This is when USDC made a comeback. A Binance representative stated at the time that the action was taken to try to focus on stablecoin liquidity. Although some market players were taken aback by the decision to lower the number of stablecoins supported, Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire praised the move, stating in an X post that the removal of USDC would “likely lead to more USDC flowing to Binance.”
According to statements made by Binance officials in September, the cryptocurrency exchange intends to comply with the legal requirements of the Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) framework by removing all stablecoins from the European market by June 2024.
The change will probably have a “significant impact on the market in Europe compared to the rest of the world,” according to Binance. In light of Circle’s recent announcement of conditional registration with the Financial Markets Authority of France (AMF), whether Binance’s decision to return USDC is connected to MiCA is unclear.
In order to comply with European standards, Allaire stated at the time that the company intends to receive a complete Digital Asset Service Provider (DASP) from France’s financial authority.
