USDC

USD Coin (USDC) is a regulated stablecoin pegged 1:1 to the U.S. dollar, issued by Circle Internet Financial. Launched in September 2018 originally as a joint venture between Circle and Coinbase through the Centre Consortium (Centre was later dissolved and Circle became the sole issuer), USDC was designed from the start to be the most transparent and regulated stablecoin, with monthly attestations from a major accounting firm verifying that reserves fully back all circulating tokens. Circle went public on the NYSE in mid-2025, making it one of the first publicly traded stablecoin issuers.

USDC reserves consist of cash held in regulated U.S. financial institutions and short-dated U.S. Treasury securities held in the Circle Reserve Fund, a government money market fund managed by BlackRock and custodied at BNY Mellon. Reserves are held segregated from Circle's operating funds and, following the Silicon Valley Bank exposure of March 2023, are held across multiple systemically important banks to limit single-bank exposure. This conservative reserve management makes USDC one of the most trusted stablecoins among institutions, DeFi protocols, and regulated businesses. Circle is headquartered in the United States, is registered with FinCEN, and holds money-transmission licenses across most U.S. states.

USDC is available natively on more than a dozen blockchains including Ethereum, Solana, Avalanche, Arbitrum, Base, Optimism, Polygon, Stellar, Sui, Aptos, Noble (Cosmos), and Algorand — Circle mints and redeems on each chain separately, so all these versions are 'native' USDC rather than wrapped bridged copies. Circle's Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol (CCTP) enables native USDC transfers between supported blockchains without wrapping or bridging: CCTP burns USDC on the source chain and mints an equivalent amount on the destination chain, materially reducing bridge-hack risk and improving capital efficiency across the multi-chain ecosystem.

In March 2023, USDC experienced its most significant test when Circle disclosed that $3.3 billion of its reserves — roughly 8% at the time — was stuck at the failed Silicon Valley Bank. USDC depegged briefly to $0.87 before the FDIC guaranteed all SVB deposits and Circle resumed 1:1 redemptions. Circle subsequently diversified reserves across multiple banks and shifted the bulk of holdings into the BlackRock-managed money market fund to further reduce banking risk. In late 2024, the EU's MiCA stablecoin rules brought regulatory clarity for USDC in Europe; Circle's EMI license in France (through Circle Mint France) allows it to issue MiCA-compliant euro and dollar stablecoins to EU users.