What is USDC?

USD Coin (USDC) is a regulated USD-pegged stablecoin co-issued by Circle Internet Financial and Coinbase through the Centre Consortium, launched in 2018. It differentiates itself from Tether primarily through transparency: USDC reserves are held in cash and short-duration US Treasury securities at regulated US financial institutions, with monthly attestations performed by a top-10 accounting firm under agreed-upon procedures. USDC is the dominant stablecoin in US-regulated DeFi contexts and institutional settlement, though it trails USDT in overall trading volume globally.

USDC operates through an issuance model similar to Tether — Circle holds reserves and mints/burns tokens against deposits — but with meaningfully more regulatory oversight. Circle is registered as a money services business with FinCEN, and USDC reserves are held at regulated US banks rather than offshore entities. Each month, Grant Thornton (and subsequently Deloitte) attests that the reserve assets equal or exceed outstanding USDC supply. Circle has pursued a public listing, further increasing financial disclosure obligations. On most EVM chains, USDC is now issued as 'native USDC' (via Circle's Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol) rather than bridged versions, which reduces bridge hack risk.

USC suffered a notable stress event in March 2023 when Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) — which held approximately $3.3 billion of Circle's reserves — was seized by regulators. USDC briefly de-pegged to roughly $0.87 on secondary markets before the FDIC backstop announcement restored confidence and the peg recovered within days. This episode illustrated that even a well-regulated stablecoin carries counterparty risk tied to the banking system, not just the issuer. It also demonstrated that market participants cannot assume a peg holds during banking stress events, regardless of reserve quality.

Reviewed by the 2Bitcoins Editorial Team · Updated June 2026. Not financial advice.