Sei price has spiked more than 13% in the past 24 hours amid news that the Wyoming Stable Token Commission has selected Sei “as a candidate blockchain” for the state’s upcoming stablecoin.

On June 19, as top coins led by Bitcoin (BTC) looked to rebound from the recent downturn, Sei (SEI) outpaced the top 100 cryptocurrencies by market cap. The SEI price jumped over 13% to hit an intraday high of $0.19, its highest level since June 12.

Why is SEI price up?

Sei Network’s native token appears to have surged following a key announcement from the blockchain project’s team.

Sei posted via X that the Wyoming Stable Token Commission had selected Sei as one of two candidate blockchains for the state’s fiat-backed stablecoin, WYST. 

Wyoming’s WYST is a fiat-backed stablecoin set to be deployed via LayerZero in July.

LayerZero Labs will be the issuance partner, with WYST issued via the interoperability protocol’s Omnichain Fungible Token standard.

The Wyoming state began testing the U.S. dollar-backed stablecoin in March, with testing across several blockchains. Apart from Sei, the other candidate blockchains, as indicated on the Commission’s WYST page are Aptos, Arbitrum, Avalanche, Base, Ethereum, Polygon, Optimism, Stellar, Solana, and Sui.

Sei Network is a layer-1 blockchain backed by Circle, Delphi Digital, Multicoin Capital, and Coinbase, among others.

Bullish sentiment around SEI surged following the Wyoming news, with daily trading volume up more than 91% to $175 million. Sei’s market capitalization climbed past $1 billion. The token reached its all-time high of $1.14 in March 2024.

Per data from DeFiLlama, the total value locked currently stands at $1.03 billion, while its stablecoin market cap sits at $213 million.