Jump to content

USD Coin

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by David Gerard (talk | contribs) at 18:14, 16 May 2023 (not RS, not found in RS). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

This article is about the cryptocurrency. For United States coinage, see Coins of the United States dollar.
USD Coin
Denominations
CodeUSDC
Development
White paper[1]
Initial releaseSeptember 2018
Website
Websitewww.centre.io/usdc

USD Coin (USDC) is a digital stablecoin pegged to the United States dollar. USD Coin is managed by a consortium called Centre,[1] which was founded by Circle and includes members from the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase[2] and Bitcoin mining company Bitmain,[3] an investor in Circle.[4] USDC is issued by a private entity and should not be confused with a central bank digital currency (CBDC).

Usage

USDC is primarily available as an Ethereum ERC-20 token, and on blockchains including Hedera Hashgraph, Algorand, Avalanche, Solana, Stellar, Polygon, and TRON.[5]

Reserves

Circle claims that each USDC is backed by a dollar held in reserve, or by other "approved investments", though these are not detailed. The wording on the Circle website changed from the previous "backed by US dollars" to "backed by fully reserved assets" in June 2021.[6]

USDC reserves are regularly attested (but not audited) by Grant Thornton, LLP,[3] and the monthly attestations can be found on the Centre Consortium's website.[7]

History

USDC was first announced on 15 May 2018 by Circle,[3] and was launched in September 2018.[8]

On March 29, 2021, Visa announced that it would allow the use of USDC to settle transactions on its payment network.[9]

As of July 2022, Circle states that there are 55 billion USDC in circulation.[10]

On March 11, 2023, USDC lost its peg to the dollar after Circle confirmed $3.3 billion, approximately 8% of its reserves, were at risk due to the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank that occurred the previous day.[11]

See also

References

  1. ^ Kharif, Olga (26 September 2018). "Circle Joins Ranks of Stable Crypto Coins With Dollar Token". Bloomberg News. Archived from the original on 6 June 2020. Retrieved 6 June 2020.
  2. ^ Geron, Tomio (11 June 2019). "Why Stablecoins Stand Out in the Cryptocurrency World". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Archived from the original on 30 August 2020. Retrieved 6 June 2020.
  3. ^ a b c Irrera, Anna (16 May 2018). "Circle raises $110 million, plans to create dollar-pegged cryptocurrency". Reuters. Archived from the original on 6 June 2020. Retrieved 6 June 2020.
  4. ^ Arnold, Martin (15 May 2018). "China bitcoin miner Bitmain leads $110m investment in Circle". Financial Times. Archived from the original on 9 November 2020. Retrieved 6 June 2020.
  5. ^ "Centre | USD Coin". www.centre.io. Retrieved 16 September 2022.
  6. ^ Venkataramakrishnan, Siddharth (9 July 2021). "Circle listing will test top stablecoin's transparency over reserves". Financial Times.
  7. ^ Centre. "Centre | USD Coin". www.centre.io. Retrieved 7 June 2021.
  8. ^ Kharif, Olga (29 October 2018). "Stable Coin Backed by Circle, Coinbase Draws Most Early Demand". Bloomberg News. Archived from the original on 6 June 2020. Retrieved 6 June 2020.
  9. ^ Hussain, Noor Zainab (29 March 2021). "Exclusive: Visa moves to allow payment settlements using cryptocurrency". Reuters. Archived from the original on 30 March 2021. Retrieved 30 March 2021.
  10. ^ "A Letter from our CEO | Circle's Strength, Stability & Transparency".
  11. ^ Ge Huang, Vicky; Miao, Hannah; Ostroff, Caitlin (11 March 2023). "Circle's USDC Stablecoin Breaks Peg With $3.3 Billion Stuck at Silicon Valley Bank". The Wall Street Journal.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=USD_Coin&oldid=1155109744"