What is USD Coin (USDC)?
USD Coin (USDC) is a stablecoin pegged to the US dollar at a 1:1 ratio and is designed to remain stable regardless of cryptocurrency market conditions.
As a fully backed stablecoin, it holds US dollar asset reserves in regulated US financial institutions. These reserves are overseen by the accounting firm Grant Thornton, which publishes monthly attestation reports.
USDC is compatible with a number of different blockchains, including Ethereum, Algorand, Solana, Stellar, and TRON. The USDC stablecoin is the second largest stablecoin ecosystem, behind only USD Tether (USDT), and just above Binance USD (BUSD).
USDC is the number two stablecoin, but it is also the fifth largest market capitalization in the cryptocurrency market at the time of writing. The $43 billion dollar plus market cap has seen to it that USD Coin has remained a top five crypto for some time now.
The coin provides users with a number of use cases, such as portfolio balancing, hedging against volatility, pricing in fiat currency, fast international remittances, peer-to-peer (P2P) payments, and payment interoperability across different blockchains.
In August, 2023, Coinbase announced that it had acquired a minority stake in Circle, the company that issues the USDC stablecoin. The deal is reportedly worth $400 million and will give Coinbase a seat on Circle's board of directors. The acquisition is seen as a way for Coinbase to strengthen its ties to the stablecoin market.
USDC has entered a number of notable partnerships, including Visa, Mastercard, and Twitter. USDC price is updated and available in real-time on Binance.