What is USD Coin (USDC)?
USDC is a US dollar stablecoin issued by Circle, first launched in September 2018 through the Centre consortium that Circle founded with Coinbase. Circle now manages the token directly, and USDC is issued natively on a range of blockchains, with Ethereum among the largest.
- Type
- Fiat-backed stablecoin
- Launched
- 2018
- Consensus
- Inherits the consensus of each host blockchain
- Max supply
- No fixed cap (minted and redeemed on demand)
- Swap network
- Ethereum
- Sector (Messari)
- Stablecoins
How USD Coin works
Each USDC is meant to be redeemable for one dollar, and Circle mints or burns tokens as institutional customers deposit or withdraw funds. Reserves are held in cash and short-dated US government obligations, largely through a dedicated fund, and Circle publishes regular reports on their composition.
What USDC is used for
USDC is widely used for settlement and payments, both in crypto markets and in business transfers that benefit from moving dollars at any hour. In decentralized finance it serves as a common unit for lending, liquidity pools and trading.
USDC supply
Supply is elastic: USDC is created when dollars are deposited and destroyed when it is redeemed. Circle aims to keep reserves equal to or greater than the amount of USDC in circulation.
Before you swap USDC
The widget defaults to USDC on Ethereum, but the same token also lives on Solana, NEAR, Base and other chains, so select the network your wallet actually uses. Beware of bridged versions with similar names, which are not the same as natively issued USDC.