USD Coin (USDC) is a digital

stablecoin Stablecoins are cryptocurrencies where the price is supposed to be pegged to a reference asset, which is either fiat money, exchange-traded commodities (such as precious metals or industrial metals), or another cryptocurrency. In theory, the p ...

pegged to the

United States dollar The United States dollar ( symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the officia ...

. USD Coin is managed by a consortium called Centre, which was founded by

Circle A circle is a shape consisting of all points in a plane that are at a given distance from a given point, the centre. Equivalently, it is the curve traced out by a point that moves in a plane so that its distance from a given point is const ...

and includes members from the

cryptocurrency A cryptocurrency, crypto-currency, or crypto is a digital currency designed to work as a medium of exchange through a computer network that is not reliant on any central authority, such as a government or bank, to uphold or maintain it. It i ...

exchange

Coinbase Coinbase Global, Inc., branded Coinbase, is an American publicly traded company that operates a cryptocurrency exchange platform. Coinbase is a distributed company; all employees operate via remote work and the company lacks a physical headquar ...

and

Bitcoin Bitcoin ( abbreviation: BTC; sign: ₿) is a decentralized digital currency that can be transferred on the peer-to-peer bitcoin network. Bitcoin transactions are verified by network nodes through cryptography and recorded in a public distr ...

mining company

Bitmain Bitmain Technologies Ltd., is a privately owned company headquartered in Beijing, China, that designs application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) chips for bitcoin mining. History It was founded by Micree Zhan and Jihan Wu in 2013. Prior to ...

, an investor in Circle. USDC is issued by a private entity and should not be confused with a

central bank digital currency A central bank digital currency (CBDC) (also called digital fiat currency or digital base money) is a digital currency issued by a central bank, rather than by a commercial bank. A report by the Bank for International Settlements states that, ...

(CBDC).

Usage

USDC is primarily available as an Ethereum ERC-20 token, and on blockchains including Hedera

Hashgraph Hashgraph is a distributed ledger technology that has been described as an alternative to blockchains. The hashgraph technology is currently patented, is used by the public ledger Hedera, and there is a grant to implement the patent as a result ...

Algorand Algorand is a proof-of-stake blockchain cryptocurrency protocol. Algorand's native cryptocurrency is called ALGO. History Algorand was founded in 2017 by Silvio Micali, a professor at MIT. Algorand is composed of a company and a foundation. ...

Avalanche An avalanche is a rapid flow of snow down a slope, such as a hill or mountain. Avalanches can be set off spontaneously, by such factors as increased precipitation or snowpack weakening, or by external means such as humans, animals, and earth ...

, Solana, Stellar, and

TRON ''Tron'' (stylized as ''TRON'') is a 1982 American science fiction action-adventure film written and directed by Steven Lisberger from a story by Lisberger and Bonnie MacBird. The film stars Jeff Bridges as Kevin Flynn, a computer programmer a ...

Reserves

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" in June 2021. USDC reserves are regularly attested (but not

audited An audit is an "independent examination of financial information of any entity, whether profit oriented or not, irrespective of its size or legal form when such an examination is conducted with a view to express an opinion thereon.” Auditing ...

) by Grant Thornton, LLP, and the monthly attestations can be found on the Centre Consortium's website.

History

USDC was first announced on 15 May 2018 by Circle, and was launched in September 2018. On March 29, 2021,

Visa Visa most commonly refers to: *Visa Inc., a US multinational financial and payment cards company ** Visa Debit card issued by the above company ** Visa Electron, a debit card ** Visa Plus, an interbank network *Travel visa, a document that allows ...

announced that it would allow the use of USDC to settle transactions on its payment network. , Circle states that there are 55 billion USDC in circulation.

References

External links

* {{Cryptocurrencies Cryptocurrencies Ethereum tokens 2018 establishments Currencies introduced in 2018 Blockchains Cryptocurrency projects

Usage

Reserves

History

See also

References

External links