Coinbase has announced that it is adding support for its dollar-pegged stablecoin USD Coin (USDC) in 85 countries around the world.

In a statement published Tuesday, Coinbase said that it was “deepening [its] support” of crypto-to-crypto trading in those countries by adding USDC support on both Coinbase and Coinbase Pro.

Today we expand USD Coin trading to 85 countries across the globe. This helps accelerate the global adoption of crypto trading and enables access to a stable store of value. Read more: https://t.co/1iH1c3FIoi pic.twitter.com/jrJWc9ASbN — Coinbase (@coinbase) May 14, 2019

“We’re welcoming more people around the world to trade between different cryptocurrencies on a trusted platform. This helps accelerate the global adoption of crypto trading, and with USDC, enables access to a stable store of value,” the company explained.

First added to Coinbase in October 2018, USDC was the first stablecoin to be listed on the exchange and, at the time, was only available to customers in select jurisdictions the United States.

Coinbase appears to be positioning USDC as a hedge against inflation, noting that stablecoins “have the potential to materially improve the lives of people in countries where inflation is eroding wealth.”

The global expansion effort continues

In addition to expanding USDC trading support, Coinbase also announced that it was adding 50 new countries to its roster, bringing the total to 103 countries across every major continent.

The list of newly added countries includes:

Angola, Armenia, Aruba, Bahamas, Bahrain, Barbados, Benin, Bermuda, Botswana, Brazil, British Virgin Islands, Brunei, Cameroon, Cayman Islands, Costa Rica, Curaçao, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Ghana, Guatemala, Honduras, Jamaica, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Macau, Maldives, Mauritius, Mongolia, Montenegro, Namibia, Nepal, Nicaragua, Oman, Panama, Paraguay, Rwanda, Serbia, South Africa, Taiwan, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Turkey, Uganda, Uruguay, Uzbekistan, and Zambia

Millions of people in these countries now have a safe, legal onramp to crypto through Coinbase and Coinbase Pro.

Expansion follows downsizing

Coinbase’s latest expansion efforts come less than a month since it was announced that the exchange was closing its Chicago office.

Caught up in the company’s downsizing were 30 engineers who had been tasked with building a new matching engine geared toward high-frequency trading.

In a statement announcing the closure, Coinbase stated, “We have made the difficult decision to consolidate the matching engine efforts and thus wind down the matching engine team in Chicago. We will look to relocate a small number of Chicago-based matching engine employees to San Francisco.”