Circle’s USDC Is Being Adopted by Jack Ma Payment Giant Ant Group

Chinese payments giant Ant Group is set to adopt Circle’s USDC stablecoin as part of its blockchain platform, Bloomberg reports.

Ant operates Alipay, the most commonly used mobile payments platform in mainland China, which is also widely supported in neighboring Asian nations. It is thought to have roughly 1.6 billion user accounts, making it the world’s most popular mobile payments platform by a wide margin. It started life as an offshoot of Alibaba, one of China’s largest online retailers and cloud providers.

The timeline for the integration is still undecided, according to the sources, but it will reportedly happen after USDC becomes fully compliant in the U.S., following the recent passage of the GENIUS Act.

Bloomberg didn’t share many details about what the USDC integration will ultimately look like. Reuters reported earlier this week that Ant Group is lobbying the Chinese government and is “seriously considering” lodging applications in other jurisdictions around the world to launch stablecoins of its own. Ant also reportedly plans to issue stablecoins backed by the Hong Kong dollar, after the island’s new rules take effect on Aug. 1.

Ant International’s head of platform tech, Kelvin Li, told an audience at the Reuters Next conference in Singapore that the firm “will not be focusing on crypto transactions” initially.

“On the other side, we’ll be focusing on global payments,” he added. “We believe stablecoins are an important means that will enable us to provide global payments in a much more efficient way and bring much better customer experience.”

Neither Circle nor Ant have confirmed the reports at the time of writing.

Circle hits new highs

The reports come as Circle, which launched in 2013, has hit record valuations following the GENIUS Act gaining congressional approval on June 17. If the bill is now approved by the House of Representatives it will give stablecoins, like USDC, legal clarity in the U.S. for the first time.

The stablecoin firm is now valued at $46 billion, making it one of the crypto industry’s most valuable companies following its IPO last month.

Alexandr Kerya, VP of product management at CEX.IO, told Decrypt this could be a sign that Circle is gaining an edge over Tether, its biggest competitor in the stablecoin space. He pointed to Circle’s greater momentum in terms of regulatory approval, noting how it beat out Tether “as the first to secure a license under the new EU rules”, and how Circle “holds the most U.S. money transmitter licenses of any stablecoin issuer.”

Kerya also pointed out its momentum in terms of adoption, highlighting how Circle’s supply has increased by 88% over the past twelve months, outpacing Tether’s 40% growth.