Is a stablecoin an official native asset? How to determine

Recently, some users were surprised to find that USDT and USDC on the FTM chain were issued by Multichain. This has raised concerns about the security of cryptocurrency assets. When using cryptocurrencies, it is crucial to understand the blockchain where the assets are located and the officially supported cross-chain bridges. This article will explore how to determine whether a stablecoin is an officially issued native asset and how to confirm its cross-chain bridge support.

Native Asset of USDC

The FAQ section of the official USDC website clearly states that USDC is a native asset on 8 blockchains: Ethereum, Solana, Avalanche, Tron, Algorand, Stellar, Flow, and Hedera. USDC on other chains is a bridged asset.

It is worth noting that although USDC on Polygon has received official support, allowing users to deposit and withdraw directly through the official account, it is still bridged through the official Polygon bridge rather than being natively issued. However, the official support indicates that its security has been recognized to some extent.

Native Support for USDT

The transparency page of the USDT official website lists all natively supported blockchains. Among them is the Omni protocol, which is referred to by some experienced users as the pioneer of BRC20. In fact, USDT was originally issued on Bitcoin/Omni.

Cross-chain bridge support for non-native assets

For non-native assets, we can check their cross-chain bridge support through data platforms like DeFillama. For example, by examining the support status of USDC across various chains, we can understand which specific cross-chain bridges provide support.

If relevant information cannot be found on mainstream data platforms, you can try searching through search engines or blockchain explorers. For example, FTMScan points out that the USDC on that chain is supported by a certain cross-chain platform.

Stablecoins of Layer 2 Networks (L2)

It is worth noting that the stablecoins on mainstream L2 networks are still non-native. However, due to the specific technology that L2 is based on, the bridged assets are generally safer than those on L1. Users can use specialized risk assessment tools to understand the specific risk situation.

This also explains why some users are dissatisfied with the slow development progress of certain L2 teams.

Conclusion

In general, to maximize asset security, it is recommended that users hold native stablecoin assets on mainstream blockchains whenever possible. Otherwise, they may face the risk of "not your private key, not your coin," and worse, their assets may be issued by unreliable third parties.