Stablecoin
Opera's canonical stablecoin is USDC.e, supported by Circle and Wormhole.
USDC.e on Wormhole is bridged from native USDC, located in a smart contract on Ethereum, and holds the potential to be upgraded to native USDC in the future by Circle. It's the official, endorsed stablecoin of the Opera ecosystem and the upcoming Sonic chain.
Bridge USDC to Opera
To bridge USDC from Ethereum to Opera, use PortalBridge. You will receive USDC.e on Opera upon completion, which is the canonical stablecoin for our chain.
You can only bridge USDC from Ethereum and not from any other chains. For other assets, please refer to Squid Router.
Native vs. Bridged USDC
According to Circle, the differences between native USDC and bridged USDC are:
Native USDC
Issued by Circle, a regulated fintech company
Backed by US dollars and always redeemable 1:1
Official form of USDC on a given blockchain
Interoperable with multiple blockchain networks via Circle’s Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol
Bridged USDC
Created by a third party, e.g. Wormhole
Backed by native USDC on another blockchain locked in a smart contract
Not compatible with Circle’s Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol
Upgradable to native USDC
Unlike native USDC, bridged USDC isn’t minted by Circle itself. On Opera, USDC.e is minted by Wormhole, bridged from native USDC located in a smart contract on Ethereum. At any point, Circle can then obtain ownership of the USDC.e token contract on Opera and upgrade it to native USDC.
Pathway to Native USDC
Circle has outlined these steps for upgrading bridged USDC to native USDC:
Wormhole has deployed USDC.e on the network
USDC.e is used to bootstrap initial liquidity in the ecosystem
USDC.e reaches a significant supply, amount of holders, and number of app integrations
Circle and Sonic Labs/Wormhole jointly elect to securely transfer ownership of the USDC.e token contract to Circle
Upon obtaining ownership, Circle upgrades USDC.e to native USDC and seamlessly retains existing supply, holders, and app integrations
The Sonic Foundation will provide liquidity for the USDC.e stablecoin on Wormhole, making it easy for the token to spread across the network and for users to bridge assets to Opera. As USDC.e begins to proliferate and gain a vast amount of holders and app integrations, Circle may consider stepping in to upgrade its token contract to native USDC.
In this scenario, the upgrade would be seamless and wouldn’t require developers to update contract addresses or users to swap to the new token. The automatic changeover ensures that native USDC on Opera can leverage the built-up USDC.e liquidity so there isn't any interruption on the network.
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