Bridged USDC Standard Now Integrated with Polygon CDK

Chains built with Polygon CDK will now have seamless integration with the gold standard for crypto’s most promising use case

Polygon Labs

July 24, 2024

Stablecoins are one of crypto’s killer apps.

In comparison to cumbersome TradFi alternatives, stablecoins shine as a beacon of all that blockchains can do. But sending stablecoins between chains often requires external bridges that may wrap assets, resulting in a number of different bridged standards circulating on different chains, with varying security assumptions.

Today, Polygon CDK becomes the first chain development kit to integrate Bridged USDC Standard. Designed by Circle, the issuers of USDC, Bridged USDC Standard is a specification and process for deploying an upgradeable version of bridged USDC on EVM chains.

As an out-of-the-box integration, Bridged USDC Standard means any chain developed with Polygon CDK will have a clear path for future upgradability to native USDC.

So what does Bridged USDC Standard enable?

Developers can build on a single contract address that will persist after any future upgrade to native USDC. That means no code changes are required for potential future support of native USDC—which will result in significantly better developer and user experience.

No need for users to swap to a new native USDC. Instead, a single upgradeable form of bridged USDC provides a seamless pathway to native USDC, with no action necessary.

The bridge and token contracts along with the rest of the implementation involved in this integration have been reviewed by core developers at Polygon Labs.

And this is only the beginning: Circle and Polygon Labs core devs are continuing to work together to explore making the AggLayer compatible with native USDC.

Through a unified bridge secured by the pessimistic proof, the AggLayer enables native asset transfers across chains. This standard is another step in ensuring this future.

What are the key benefits of a stack integrated with Bridged USDC Standard?

Integrating Bridged USDC Standard with Polygon CDK will benefit the entire Polygon landscape–and anyone who wants to use stablecoins. Here are some of the key benefits:

Better for unified liquidity. When implemented on any given Polygon CDK-deployed chain, Bridged USDC Standard means developers can build around a single form of bridged USDC. This ameliorates liquidity fragmentation of multiple bridges and standards that are familiar among many blockchains.

Permissionless and extensible. Any chain built with Polygon CDK can incorporate the standard to deploy a bridged USDC or EURC token contract. This is also extensible to bridged EURC. For developers building with Polygon CDK, this will be especially seamless.

Standardized for better developer and user experience. A standardized process ensures consistency and security when upgrading bridged USDC contracts to native USDC.

Secure and audited: Bridged USDC Standard is open-source and audited, based on the same audited ERC-20 contract code for USDC, which has secured billions of dollars in liquidity.

Upgradeable and seamless: If and when Circle chooses to upgrade to native USDC issuance, the upgrade is performed seamlessly, giving developers and users access to native USDC, and avoiding a time-consuming migration.

Already, a number of chains have integrated Bridged USDC Standard, although Polygon CDK is the first chain development kit to make it easy for chain builders to integrate the standard from launch. Polygon zkEVM and X Layer have already integrated Bridged USDC Standard.

Building a chain with Polygon CDK and want to figure out how to get started? Check out this repo and start building now.

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