Circle Axes Support for USDC on Tron, Citing 'Risk Management'

USDC issuer Circle has discontinued support for the stablecoin on the Tron blockchain, the firm announced today.

In a blog post, the firm said that it would no longer mint USDC on Tron, "effective immediately," and that it will support Circle Mint customers' transfers of USDC from Tron to other blockchains through to Feburary 2025.

Retail users can move USDC on Tron to exchanges where it can be transferred to USDC-supported blockchains.

The firm stated that it "continually assesses the suitability of all blockchains where USDC is supported," as part of its risk management framework, and that its decision to discontinue support for USDC on Tron, "aligns with our efforts to ensure that USDC remains trusted, transparent and safe."

In a statement to Bloomberg, Tron founder Justin Sun said that, "we’re currently trying to understand the situation, and it seems to be a unilateral commercial decision by Circle."

While not directly mentioning Circle or USDC by name, shortly after the stablecoin issuer's announcement, Sun posted on Twitter that, "We respect and support each developer's development decisions and hope to encourage them to develop on TRON."

Decrypt has reached out to Tron for comment on USDC, and will update this article should we receive a response.

The news doesn't appear to have impacted the price of Tron's TRX token, which is currently trading at $0.1392, up 1.3% on the day, per data from CoinGecko.

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Tron's legal woes

In March 2023, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) hit Sun with market manipulation and fraud charges, accusing him of manipulating the price of Tron's TRX token via his company, the Tron Foundation, to the tune of $31 million in illicit gains.

The regulator also alleged that Sun manipulated the price of BitTorrent's BTT token, claiming that both BTT and TRX are unregistered securities, and that the crypto mogul had orchestrated "a scheme to pay celebrities to tout TRX and BTT without disclosing their compensation." Those named in the lawsuit included Lindsay Lohan, Jake Paul, Soulja Boy, Lil Yachty and Akon.

At the time, Sun said that the fraud charges against him "lack merit," accusing the regulator of a pattern of actions against "well known players in the blockchain and crypto space."

Edited by Stacy Elliott.