Cosmos migration of legacy USDC versions slated for September, Injective says

@injective has announced it is working with @circle and teams across the @cosmos ecosystem to move legacy $USDC versions onto the native issuance that Circle launched on Injective in May, with the broader migration now targeting September.

The legacy versions in scope include Noble-issued USDC and bridged variants that have circulated across Cosmos chains. The goal is to consolidate them onto a single, natively issued standard backed directly by Circle, removing the fragmentation that has long complicated stablecoin use across interchain applications.

How the native issuance works

The foundation for this shift was laid on May 7, 2026, when native USDC and Circle's Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol (CCTP) went live on the Injective mainnet. CCTP allows USDC to move natively across blockchains, meaning tokens are burned on the source chain and minted on the destination chain rather than locked in a bridge contract. It was also Circle's first MultiVM issuance of the token.

The integration was intended to ensure continued USDC availability across Cosmos chains after Noble announced its migration plans to a dedicated EVM Layer 1 and positioned its Cosmos SDK chain into maintenance mode. By taking over that position, Injective is expected to absorb more than $100 million in stablecoin issuance connected to the ecosystem.

Cosmos Hub commitment and rollout

Four days after launch, the Cosmos Hub adopted the Injective issuance as the ecosystem's reference USDC under a minimum four-year commitment, with Skip:Go set to treat it as the default USDC denomination. Cosmos Hub, Cosmos Labs, and Skip Protocol confirmed that Injective-issued USDC will route through the Inter-Blockchain Communication (IBC) protocol.

The migration rolls out over the coming months, with dYdX going first, and Cosmos Labs coordinating the rollout for additional chains and applications across the ecosystem. Migration tools are also being prepared for chains and DeFi platforms transitioning from previous USDC liquidity providers. For users, the frontend experience is expected to remain mostly unchanged.

A portion of fees generated from Injective USDC activity will also be allocated to programmatically buy back ATOM, the native token of the Cosmos Hub.

Sources
Injective: USDC Adopted by Cosmos and dYdX as Canonical Stablecoin Standard
Crypto Times: Cosmos Hub Adopts Injective USDC as Primary Stablecoin
Crypto Briefing: Injective Initiates Migration of Exchange dApps to USDC Standard