Ant Group, the fintech unit of Alibaba backed by Jack Ma, cooperated with Circle to bring the USDC stablecoin onto its blockchain platform, AntChain, according to a Bloomberg report citing anonymous sources.
Integration will come later once USDC is in complete compliance with United States regulatory requirements, but no specific timeline was given for the move.
Circle’s Regulatory Compliance Push
The reported partnership is the follow-up to Circle’s efforts in the recent past to enhance regulatory credibility. The firm has made an application to establish a national trust bank within the U.S. to oversee USDC reserves and enhance trust in operations.
The U.S. Senate meanwhile passed the GENIUS Act in June, which aims to create a definitional regulatory framework for stablecoin issuers. The bill has been considered a game changer for stablecoins like USDC, especially as its counterpart, the STABLE Act, stalled in Congress.
Ant Group’s Expanding Blockchain Ambitions
Ant Group, best known for the Alipay super-app, already processes over $1 trillion annually and has been expanding its blockchain footprint with AntChain. The platform supports cross-border payments, treasury, and tokenization services.
Ant Group also has been said to have compelled the approvals of yuan-denominated stablecoins in China in recent months in collaboration with JD.com. Ant International is also said to be mulling stablecoin issuer licenses in Singapore and Hong Kong.
Circle’s Global Expansion Strategy
Circle has been quickly expanding its presence in the midst of increasing regulatory clarity. In June, it became VanEck’s largest holding in digital asset corporate index. It also partnered with OKX to offer feeless USDC-to-USD swaps and collaborated with Coinbase Derivatives and Nodal Clear to bring USDC to U.S. futures markets as eligible collateral.
CEO Jeremy Allaire has been vocal about the growing potential of stablecoins, calling them the “most utility-form-of-money-ever-made” and likening their near-future developer adoption to that of the iPhone.
