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Stablecoins: Definition, How They Work, and Types

June 14, 2024

what is usd coin

USDC along with tether (USDT) equates to more than 80% of total market capitalization for all U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoins. Though USDT has the largest market capitalization among all stablecoins, USDC has its advantages the most secure bitcoin wallets in the uk and differences among its peers. Stablecoins have various use cases, including remittances, trading on cryptocurrency exchanges, and hedging against crypto volatility. Somewhat of a sub-category of fiat-collateralized coins, commodity-backed stablecoins are cryptocurrencies that are pegged to the market value of commodities such as gold, silver, or oil. These stablecoins generally hold the commodity using third-party custodians or by investing in instruments that hold them.

what is usd coin

This Is How Long It Takes To Transfer USDC

Circle first announced plans to launch USD Coin on May 15, 2018, and raised $110 million. Centre, the consortium that manages the USD Coin crypto, releases monthly reports issued by Grant Thornton, LLP, one of the top accounting firms in the country. Its reports provide the number of USDC in circulation and the total value of the reserves backing USD Coin. That’s important because it shows there are actual funds in an account for every USDC.

What can you do with the US Dollar Coin?

In March, news broke that America’s oldest bank BNY Mellon would serve as the primary custodian of the assets backing USDC stablecoins. Meanwhile, a press release revealed that BlackRock will serve as a primary asset manager of USDC cash reserves. Another popular option is USD Coin staking on decentralized crypto exchanges. Most of these platforms allow you to deposit an equal amount of USD Coin and another cryptocurrency into liquidity pools that are used to facilitate crypto trading.

USDC Offers Transparency

You can, for instance, deposit bdswiss broker review it in BlockFi, a loans company that offers you interest for depositing USDC (among other coins). Since then, it has expanded into cryptocurrency—raising millions in venture capital and acquiring crypto exchange Poloniex. Every USDC is backed by a U.S. dollar in a bank account audited monthly by accounting firm Grant Thornton.

While some issuers back their stablecoins with a variety of financial instruments, the USD Coin reserves consist of only U.S. treasury securities and cash deposits. All this volatility can be great for traders, but it turns routine transactions like purchases into risky speculation for the what is an igo crypto buyer and seller. Investors holding cryptocurrencies for long-term appreciation don’t want to become famous for paying 10,000 Bitcoins for two pizzas. Meanwhile, most merchants don’t want to end up taking a loss if the price of a cryptocurrency plunges after they get paid in it.

In 2020, Circle and Coinbase collectively announced a major upgrade to USDC’s protocol and smart contract. The goal of these enhancements is to make it easier for USDC to be used for everyday payments, commerce and peer-to-peer transactions. USDC is an ERC-20 token, so when it comes to security, it relies on the underlying Ethereum network. If you’re worrying about the security of its peg, then that responsibility lies with Circle. To be transparent, USDC is audited by a third party that publishes information on its reserves periodically.

Then in 2021, Circle launched another stablecoin, EURC,  pegged to the value of the Euro. Such reserves are maintained by independent custodians and are regularly audited, something that should be considered cautiously. Tether (USDT) and TrueUSD (TUSD) are popular stablecoins backed by U.S. dollar reserves and denominated at parity to the dollar. As of late June 2024, Tether (USDT) was the third-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, worth more than $112 billion. USD Coin (USDC) is issued by the Centre consortium, which is made up of several major cryptocurrency companies, including Circle and Coinbase.

Sign up for an account in minutes to buy crypto using credit card or bank transfer. USD Coin’s price today is US$0.9948, with a 24-hour trading volume of $9.35 B. USDC is +0.00% in the last 24 hours.USDC has a circulating supply of 38.96 B USDC. For intermittent trading and daily use though, USD Coin is certainly one of the most trustworthy stablecoin options out there.

  • In USD Coin’s case, the asset is the U.S. dollar, and one USDC is designed to maintain a value of $1.
  • This makes USD Coin a popular option for holding cryptocurrency without the volatility and price risk of major coins such as Bitcoin and Ethereum.
  • In 2021, Circle announced its intentions of becoming a national digital currency bank.
  • USD Coin is widely considered to be the safer option because of its transparency.

So Centre has forged partnerships with Algorand, Stellar and Solana, rival blockchains, to expand the market. The customer can also convert the USDC back into US Dollars, which will then be wired back into their bank account. According to Kraken, USD Coin transactions take about five minutes to complete and require 20 confirmations. Meanwhile, USDC’s value has stayed relatively stable over its life, although there may be some short-term volatility during extreme market periods, Manoppo says. Dollar-cost averaging (DCA) bitcoin in an automated manner has emerged as a popular way to “stack sats” among Bitcoiners. The European Union’s Market in Crypto Assets (MiCA) Regulations aims to make the crypto industry in the Eurozone a transparent and secure environment for investors.

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