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'Gasless' Technical Update Brings USDC One Step Closer to Venmo

Users do not have to pre-fund their USDC-bearing wallet with ether before every transaction, according to Centre.

Updated Feb 16, 2022, 7:30 p.m. Published Aug 27, 2020, 6:22 p.m.

You can now send cryptodollars back and forth without paying a fee to the Ethereum network, according to the Centre Consortium in a Thursday blog post.

Dubbed USDC 2.0, USD Coin (USDC) has integrated what are called "meta transactions" natively to the dollar stablecoin platform. Now, users do not have to pre-fund their USDC-bearing wallets with ether (ETH) in order to send a transaction.
Meta transactions allow USDC wallets and compatible applications to act as virtual "gas stations" by paying the associated mining fee that accompanies every Ethereum blockchain transaction.
"This [update] enables people to fund their non-custodial wallets with USDC and start using DeFi/dapps without also having to own ETH," Coinbase developer Peter Jihoon Kim told CoinDesk.
The update is backwards-compatible, meaning old USDC clients can continue using the network without upgrading.
Centre also released a new on-chain signature schematic to help govern the project as new partners join the Coinbase– and Circle-founded project.
USDC is the second-largest stablecoin by market cap at $1.4 billion.

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Coinbase Circle USDC CENTRE Consortium

William Foxley

Will Foxley is the host of The Mining Pod and publisher at Blockspace Media. A former co-host of CoinDesk's The Hash, Will was the director of content at Compass Mining and a tech reporter at CoinDesk.