USDC On Polygon Now Available In Nimiq Wallet

Team Nimiq is proud to announce the integration of USDC on Polygon into the Nimiq Wallet and payment ecosystem. This is the second currency addition to the Nimiq Wallet, and marks a significant milestone towards our vision for the future of payments.

The successful integration of the USDC stablecoin is the result of an ambitious work sprint in which we also revamped the wallet’s UX and UI to further our ambition of providing a seamless payments experience for users.

Open your wallet now and activate the update!

A long time coming

The concept of incorporating a stablecoin had been under consideration for some time. The community and team engaged in lively discussions on the matter, including technical feasibility checks on "wrapped NIM", consultations on legal implications, and fundamental debates on the potential impact of this technical integration on the non-stable NIM. Recent developments and insights have culminated in a decision.

One such insight was provided by Chainalysis’s recently published Crypto Adoption Index, summarizing the current state of crypto usage around the world. It concludes:

Crypto is used the most in emerging markets, and the majority of transactions are done on stablecoins.
Cryptocurrencies continue to thrive where there are true use cases, even despite bans, for example in China.
Fundamentals of crypto regarding self-custody, censorship resistance, decentralization and neutrality are the main drivers for crypto adoption.

“… users in lower middle and upper middle income countries often rely on cryptocurrency to send remittances, preserve their savings in times of fiat currency volatility, and fulfill other financial needs unique to their economies. These countries also tend to lean on Bitcoin and stablecoins more than other countries.”

Meeting users where they are

While we believe in the merit of such reports, it ultimately was the feedback of the merchants using our payment tools that made clear: Without the option to avoid volatility, accepting crypto payments and holding crypto on the balance sheet is too big of a risk for small businesses operating on thin margins.

Providing a crypotcurrency similar to the known FIAT money not only substantially lowers the barrier to entry, it also increases the chance of continuous usage (aka adoption).

So in order to really popularize crypto, we believe it is necessary to meet people where they are. Stablecoins act as a gateway, bridging the gap between the two worlds and paving the way to eventually move on to a cryptocurrency fully de-pegged from fiat, like NIM.

Why USDC?

With a constant focus on user-friendliness and convenience, we have made the decision to introduce a stablecoin that offers the same level of familiarity as modern conventional payments, along with all the essential advantages of self-custody.

After considering various options, we selected USDC for its exceptional reputation, strong support, and excellent infrastructure. USDC operates on multiple blockchains, with Ethereum and Polygon being the most widely recognized and respected.

Why Polygon USDC?

While the Ethereum-based stablecoin is currently the most widely used, Polygon (a second layer chain on top of Ethereum) offers significantly greater performance in terms of speed and transaction costs – crucial characteristics when aiming for everyday payments.

Still, the need to hold and spend MATIC (Polygon’s native token) to transfer USDC threatens to jeopardize the idea of easy and effortless stablecoin usage.

A technical challenge Nimiq Engineers were able to solve using a project called Ethereum Gas Station Network (GSN). It enables so called “gas payment abstraction” effectively freeing the user from having to worry about paying for gas – GSN does it for them. This functionality was extended to the Polygon Network by doing some clever smart contract coding. To avoid overloading this article with information, we will provide more details on this topic in a forthcoming technical blog post.

For the Wallet, it simply means: All the Polygon USDC goodness without the need for MATIC.

A step towards a greater vision

With support for a total of three cryptocurrencies, some may assume that our wallet is on the path to becoming a multi-currency wallet.

But, we have a different vision in mind.

There are already countless multi-currency wallets available, each with its own unique design and purpose, but all aimed at accommodating a wide variety of coins. If we assume that most crypto holders are motivated by investment opportunities, then diversifying one's portfolio by holding new coins as they emerge makes perfect sense. This is why many people prefer to use a single service that can handle multiple currencies for the sake of convenience.

However, at Nimiq, we have never been too concerned with following the market trends. Entering the oversaturated market of multi-currency wallets is neither a promising nor a contributory pursuit towards Nimiq's goal of promoting widespread crypto adoption.

Depending on your perspective, situation and needs, you can decide to distribute your value across currencies with various qualities and capabilities. Fast and convenient like cash, slow and steady like gold, stable like bad old FIAT or volatile and fast-paced like crypto.

By adding USDC to the Wallet, we are now able to offer what we’re calling, “The Trinity”:

BTC: Store of Value
USDC: Trusted stablecoin
NIM: High-performance payment coin

Ultimately, the Nimiq Wallet should support every major currency quality and capability that you might desire.

What’s new?

Here are the changes to the wallet:

USDC available

You can hold, receive and send Polygon USDC. And of course, you can swap USDC for NIM and BTC using SuperSimpleSwap.

Simplified onboarding

The account creation was substantially streamlined. The Identicon for the first address will be auto-assigned. Effectively, a new user sets a password and downloads the Login File – that’s it.

No more Identicon names

The auto-created Identicon names were always quite bulky and confused especially new users. We’re ending this feature and have implemented a more straightforward way of naming the addresses: They are named after the Identicon’s background color, which also connects to the naming convention of the accounts (blue background = “Blue address”).

Greater emphasis on swaps and asset-mobility

As a first expression of our new Wallet vision, atomic-swapping assets is now more accessible from the dashboard, illustrating how easy it is and encouraging a more fluid way of looking at these assets.

The bar indicating the allocation of assets was a nice concept but proved difficult to read and use. We now feature a ring chart in the sidebar that reduces clutter in the main interaction area and provides more straightforward info on asset allocation.

Overhauled Network map

Originally, the ‘Network’ view only showed the Nimiq Network. Now, BTC and USDC were added providing some base stats on all networks. We decided to keep the info rather light and exclusively show stats that don’t require crypto knowledge (what’s block height?) and provide value to the users, e.g. the current transaction costs.

Please have a look and tell us what you think!

On towards adoption

Nimiq's Core Team has been making excellent progress, frequently sharing updates on their latest Proof-of-Stake developments. However, much of the team's efforts, not related to the protocol, are focused on building infrastructure and providing access points.

The USDC integration is an addition to the adoption-focused tech and products released by Team Nimiq. Here is a quick summary of the latest initiatives:

Cryptopayment.link

An easy and free way to create invoices and get paid in crypto in true peer-to-peer fashion. The basic MVP service was dramatically improved last year with a merchant dashboard, export features for bookkeeping, options to charge on the spot or send an invoice plus an ‘accept-only’ feature for employees.

map.nimiq.com

Released just this January, the crypto map gives more visibility to merchants accepting crypto. We consider this a general contribution to crypto that should not be limited to NIM acceptance. Read more in the blog article and help the map (and crypto in general) grow by adding places!

Cryptocity

Further fostering and supporting crypto adoption, Team Nimiq developed a framework to help communities unite their adoption efforts. “Cryptocity“ is designed as an umbrella initiative that can be localized to represent any place eager to adopt. Last tweaks are being made but behind the curtains, the setup of the first Cryptocity is in full swing with partners and merchants being added on a daily basis. More on this very, very soon.

Wrapping up

We are fully committed to NIM becoming the world’s leading decentralized form of payment. We see the addition of USDC to our Wallet and atomic swaps as an important step towards that vision.

As always we thank you for joining us on this journey and would love to hear your opinions, so let us know what you think on Twitter.

Pura Vida

Team Nimiq