Circle Stock Booms as Stablecoin USDC Officially Expands to Sam Altman's World Chain
Circle (CRCL) stock jumped more than 10% in trading Wednesday after the company announced its stablecoin USDC is now natively supported on the new World Chain blockchain developed by Worldcoin and OpenAI co-founder Sam Altman.
USDC Expands to Next-Generation Blockchain
The move to World Chain, a blockchain that prioritizes user identity verification, marks a strategic milestone in the global expansion of USDC, the world's second-largest stablecoin by market capitalization.
With the new upgrade, USDC tokens that were previously bridged on World Chain are now fully converted to native, natively compatible USDC, thanks to the integration of Circle's Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol (CCTP V2).
“This integration enhances liquidity, security, and capital efficiency across the World Chain ecosystem,” Circle stated in its official blog post.
The expansion means USDC now has native support on 21 different blockchains, cementing its position as one of the most flexible and trusted multi-chain stablecoins in the industry.
CRCL Shares Quadrupled IPO Price
Circle shares are currently trading around $116 per share, up more than 10% on the day and nearly four times their initial public offering (IPO) price of $31. CRCL shares had previously hit a temporary high of $138.57 on Monday.
Circle’s IPO, which took place last week on the Nasdaq, has created a wave of excitement among investors: the stock has been halted multiple times due to its rapid price increase, reflecting strong market confidence in Circle’s business model and the long-term potential of USDC.
With a current market valuation of around $28.34 billion, Circle has become one of the most valuable publicly listed crypto fintech companies globally.
Circle IPO: Surpassing Meta, Robinhood, and Airbnb in Initial Appeal
Circle’s IPO has not only made a splash in the crypto industry, but has also outperformed the debut performance of many tech giants such as Meta (Facebook), Robinhood, and Airbnb when compared to the growth rate of their shares immediately after the IPO.
With $1.1 billion raised, largely for the company’s expansion and to return capital to existing shareholders, Circle has accelerated the trend of crypto companies entering the public market. Previously, companies like eToro and Fold also went public, but did not achieve the same meteoric growth as CRCL.
Spillover effect: Gemini is about to IPO, Worldcoin benefits
Circle's success has created a ripple effect in the industry: Gemini, the cryptocurrency exchange run by the billionaire Winklevoss twins, has also filed a confidential IPO application with the SEC (Form S-1).
On the World Chain blockchain side, developed by Worldcoin, Sam Altman's project, integrating native USDC is a strategic move to help this ecosystem access stable liquidity, which can support millions of new users in the future.
Conclusion: Synergy between stablecoins and digital identity
With this move, Circle is laying the foundation for a multi-chain future, in which stablecoins serve as the core payment infrastructure, and World Chain represents the decentralized identity verification layer of Web3.
“USDC on World Chain is not just a technological integration, it is a sign that stablecoins are moving closer to playing a core role in the new Internet economy, where people and data are verified in a transparent and secure way,” said an analyst at Galaxy Research.
The combination of powerful stablecoin products like USDC and digital identity ecosystems like Worldcoin promises to usher in a period of sustainable development and deep legitimization for the global cryptocurrency sector.