Through this integration, users will be able to send Circle’s stablecoin, USDC, the world’s second-largest dollar-pegged token preferred by institutions for its strong regulatory backing. Use of stablecoins in cross-border transactions has expanded robustly this year due to low transaction costs, according to the IMF’s annual report.
Galaxy users can seamlessly send USDC to compatible crypto wallets abroad or directly to eligible bank accounts in more than 60 countries, with recipients receiving the funds in local currency. Samsung will not charge any fees for USDC transfers to compatible external wallets, although recipient wallets or exchanges may charge a fee of their own.
For users, the product strips out much of the crypto setup normally required to send stablecoins. Samsung said customers will fund transfers through integrated on- and off-ramps, and biometric authentication on a registered Galaxy device will be required to send funds.
The rollout turns Samsung’s broader stablecoin ambitions into a consumer product. Samsung said in August it planned to add stablecoin savings and payment features to hundreds of millions of Galaxy phones, a move that analysts told CoinDesk could make the company a major distributor of digital dollars. The U.S. launch is its first large-scale deployment.
The integration gives Samsung a token distribution channel that crypto companies have historically struggled to build on their own. By embedding the tech into a familiar payments app installed on tens of millions of phones, it pushes stablecoins beyond speculative trading toward a simple remittance product where the recipient can receive fiat in a bank account without ever opening a crypto wallet.
