Circle, the issuer of the USDC stablecoin, plans to enter about 40 developing markets — with demand strongest in Southeast Asia, Latin America, Africa, and the Middle East. That is according to Circle CEO and chairman Jeremy Allaire, speaking to Reuters on the sidelines of the IMF and World Bank meetings in Bangkok, as quoted by Cointelegraph and Decrypt.
“We’re kind of going through an inflection point… a transition right now, and that transition is essentially moving from the early adopter phase of blockchain technology into the mainstream scaling phase,” Allaire said. In his view, businesses and individuals in developing countries use stablecoins to enter the internet-based economic system — not merely to speculate on prices.
The move comes with competitive context: as CoinDesk reported, Circle is defending USDC’s economics against stablecoin rivals courting its partners with bigger revenue shares. Bernstein analysts have estimated that a new USDC growth cycle could be driven by US regulatory clarity, tokenized capital markets, and early signs of stablecoin use in payments by AI agents.
For Southeast Asia — a region with some of the world’s highest crypto adoption — Circle’s official entry could accelerate stablecoin use in real payments: from freelancers receiving digital-dollar salaries to small businesses invoicing customers across borders. The challenge remains the same as in Indonesia: clear rules from each country’s regulators.