Circle's USDC Lands on OKX's X Layer — Bridgeless, Banless, Borderless 💸

Circle has launched native USDC and its Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol on OKX's X Layer, an Ethereum-compatible layer-2 network, the company said Friday. The deployment brings Circle-issued USDC to an exchange ecosystem connected to OKX, the fourth-largest crypto exchange by trading volume after recording more than $975 million in spot trading volume over the past 24 hours, according to CoinMarketCap data.

Native USDC is now available for decentralized finance applications, payments, trading platforms, treasury management, real-world asset tokenization and artificial intelligence-powered transactions built on X Layer. The network is compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine, allowing Ethereum-based applications to run on it with relatively few changes. Circle said the integration also gives qualified businesses access to USDC issuance and redemption through Circle Mint.

CCTP allows USDC to move between X Layer and other supported blockchains by burning the tokens on the source chain and minting an equivalent amount on the destination chain. Circle designed the protocol to transfer USDC between chains without relying on traditional wrapped versions of the stablecoin. The integration extends CCTP coverage to USDC transfers across 26 blockchains, while native USDC is now available on 36 networks.

OKX developed X Layer to target use cases across decentralized finance, payments, real-world asset tokenization and AI-driven on-chain services, while offering lower fees and faster settlement than Ethereum mainnet. USDC is the world's second-largest stablecoin by market capitalization.