USD Coin

USD Coin (USDC) is a digital stablecoin that is pegged to the United States dollar and runs on the Ethereum, Stellar, Algorand, Avalanche, Solana, Tron and Hedera Hashgraph system. [1][2][3][4][5] USD Coin is managed by a consortium called Centre,[6] which was founded by Circle and includes members from the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase[7] and Bitcoin mining company Bitmain,[8] an investor in Circle.[9] USDC is issued by a private entity and should not be confused with a central bank digital currency (CBDC).

This article is about the cryptocurrency. For United States coinage, see Coins of the United States dollar.
USD Coin
CodeUSDC
Development
White paper
Websitewww.centre.io/usdc
Block explorerEtherscan.io

Circle claims that each USDC is backed by a dollar held in reserve, or by other "approved investments", though these are not detailed. The wording on the Circle website changed from the previous "backed by US dollars" to "backed by fully reserved assets" by June 2021.[10]

The tokenization of the US Dollar into USD Coin happens in a three-step process:

  1. A user sends US dollars to the coin issuer's bank account.
  2. The issuer uses a USD Coin smart contract to create the equivalent amount of USD Coin.
  3. The newly minted USD Coins are sent to the user and the substituted US dollars are held in a reserve.

The redemption of USD Coins for US Dollars follows the process listed above but in reverse.

USDC reserves are regularly attested (but not audited) by Grant Thornton, LLP,[8] and the monthly attestations can be found on the Centre Consortium's website.[11]

USDC was first announced on the 15th of May 2018 by Circle,[12] and was launched in September of 2018.[13]

On March 29, 2021, Visa announced that it would allow the use of USDC to settle transactions on its payment network.[14]

As of June 2021 Circle states that there are 24.1 billion USDC in circulation.[15][16]

See also

References
  1. "Announcing USDC on Ten new blockchain platforms". circle.io. Retrieved 30 June 2021.
  2. "USDC for Algorand now available in your Circle Account". www.algorand.com. Archived from the original on 2021-02-14. Retrieved 2021-03-14.
  3. Consortium, Centre. "Centre Consortium Announces Algorand as an Official Chain for USDC, Launches on Mainnet". www.prnewswire.com. Archived from the original on 2020-12-04. Retrieved 2021-03-14.
  4. "Circle | Multichain USDC — The power of USDC brought to multiple blockchains". www.circle.com. Archived from the original on 2021-04-17. Retrieved 2021-04-17.
  5. "Avalanche Adds USDC Stablecoin in Continued DeFi Push". www.coindesk.com. Archived from the original on 2021-12-14. Retrieved 2021-12-14.
  6. Kharif, Olga (2018-09-26). "Circle Joins Ranks of Stable Crypto Coins With Dollar Token". Bloomberg News. Archived from the original on 2020-06-06. Retrieved 2020-06-06.
  7. Geron, Tomio (2019-06-11). "Why Stablecoins Stand Out in the Cryptocurrency World". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Archived from the original on 2020-08-30. Retrieved 2020-06-06.
  8. Irrera, Anna (2018-05-16). "Circle raises $110 million, plans to create dollar-pegged cryptocurrency". Reuters. Archived from the original on 2020-06-06. Retrieved 2020-06-06.
  9. Arnold, Martin (2018-05-15). "China bitcoin miner Bitmain leads $110m investment in Circle". Financial Times. Archived from the original on 2020-11-09. Retrieved 2020-06-06.
  10. Venkataramakrishnan, Siddharth (9 July 2021). "Circle listing will test top stablecoin's transparency over reserves". Financial Times.
  11. Centre. "Centre | USD Coin". www.centre.io. Retrieved 2021-06-07.
  12. Irrera, Anna (2018-05-16). "Circle raises $110 million, plans to create dollar-pegged cryptocurrency". Reuters. Archived from the original on 2020-06-06. Retrieved 2020-06-06.
  13. Kharif, Olga (2018-10-29). "Stable Coin Backed by Circle, Coinbase Draws Most Early Demand". Bloomberg News. Archived from the original on 2020-06-06. Retrieved 2020-06-06.
  14. Hussain, Noor Zainab (29 March 2021). "Exclusive: Visa moves to allow payment settlements using cryptocurrency". Reuters. Archived from the original on 30 March 2021. Retrieved 30 March 2021.
  15. "Circle | USD Coin (USDC) Stablecoin". Archived from the original on 2020-05-01. Retrieved 2020-04-21.
  16. "Circle | USD Coin (USDC) Stablecoin". www.circle.com. Retrieved 2021-06-07.
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