Cryptocurrency attributes
Other attributes
USD Coin (USDC) is a stablecoin pegged to the US dollar on a 1:1 basis, which means every unit of USDC is supposed to be backed by the same amount of US dollars held in reserve, both in cash and in short-term US treasury bonds. USDC was launched in late 2018 and is designed to offer greater stability in its price than other cryptocurrencies. There is no maximum or total supply of USDC, as new tokens are intended to be issued on demand. The stability of the coin is designed to avoid the volatility of fixed-supply cryptocurrencies, increase currency-to-cryptocurrency conversion, and increase participation in cryptocurrency.
The USD Coin is available as an Ethereum ERC-20, Algorand ASA, Avalanche ERC-20, Flow FT, Hedera SDK, Solana SPL, Stellar asset, and TRON TRC-20; it is expected to grow as other fiat currencies are added. This allows the coin to be compatible with the Ethereum, Algorand, Solana, Avalanche, Flow, Hedera, Stellar, and TRON blockchains and their ecosystems.
Developed by Circle, USDC is managed by Centre, while new coins of USDC continue to be issued by Circle. The reserves backing USDC's price stability are held in the custody and management of US financial institutions, including BlackRock and BNY Mellon, while each month Grant Thornton LLP provides a third-party audit to ensure the USDC reserves remain stable. USD Coin is available on the Optimism Layer 2 scaling product for the Ethereum network to allow for collaboration and for other layer-2 opportunities for USDC.
USDC allows users to send tokenized fiat currency across a blockchain network, which can be faster and cheaper than sending dollars through a legacy banking system, allowing the user to generate USDC by sending USD to the token issuer in exchange for USDC and redeem USD by reversing the process. The first process tokenizes the USD by minting new USDC, while redeeming the USDC for USD burns the equivalent USDC token from the network, minus all incurred fees. Further, unlike other stablecoins, such as USDT (Tether), the USDC creators are obligated to provide full transparency, which as noted above they do through third parties. All monthly attestations are available through Circle.
