Circle, the issuer of USD Coin (USDC), has announced a significant upgrade to its stablecoin, aiming to enhance usability and security. The upgrade, known as v2.2, introduces several improvements, including account abstraction, enhanced security, and lower gas fees.
1/ We’re excited to unveil a new v2.2 upgrade to $USDC and $EURC that reduces gas costs, improves support for account abstraction, and bolsters security on EVM blockchains.
Learn more about the rollout timing and how v2.2 improves gas efficiency by >7%.https://t.co/WFsQL2FBNh
— Circle (@circle) November 9, 2023
One of the key features of the upgrade is the introduction of “gasless sends,” which allows digital wallet developers to remove the complexity of gas fees from the user experience. This means that users will no longer need to hold a balance of Ether (ETH) to pay for transaction fees on the Ethereum network.
Instead, these fees can be paid for by the wallet developers or deducted from USDC. In addition to improving the user experience, the upgrade also introduces a new set of on-chain multiple-signature contracts, including new consensus mechanisms. These changes aim to improve the resiliency and growth of the Centre Consortium, the organization behind USDC.
Circle’s v2.2 Upgrade Improves Security Levels
By shifting offline human processes into on-chain multiple signature processes, the upgrade enhances security and auditability. The upgrade is completely backward compatible, meaning there will be no impact or changes to wallets, exchanges, or applications currently integrating with USDC.
The improvements are available to any wallet developer, with Circle and Coinbase intending to introduce support for these protocol improvements in their respective products and services.
The company has announced additional updates which include the activation of signature validations from smart contract wallets, enhancements to blocklist checks, increased resilience against forks, and the removal of blocklist checks from functions that don’t involve fund transfers.
Other updates include bypassing the timestamp check when the deadline is set to the maximum value and a one-off change of the EURC symbol from EUROC.
The announcement of the upgrade comes at a time when USDC has reached a market cap of $24B, solidifying its position as one of the fastest-growing regulated, fully-reserved digital dollar stablecoins in the world. The upgrade is expected to further boost the adoption and usage of USDC in the crypto economy.
