Summary:

• The past, present and future of USD Coins.
• The options available for use of USDC.
• Terminology.
• USDC as a pillar of the blockchain ecosystem.

The USD coin was launched in 2018, and has since become a popular tool for applications and businesses of all sizes, it is used in every industry. The Coin flows seamlessly across most of the world's top blockchains.

USD Coin is a digital stablecoin that is attached to the US Dollar.

USD Coin is a digital stablecoin that is attached to the US Dollar, it is used as a digital dollar for global businesses. This coin is interesting because it is always redeemable in a ratio of 1:1 for US Dollars, meaning it gives its users access to the US Dollar. There are 49.3 Billion USDC currently in circulation.

Recall that a stablecoin is a type of cryptocurrency whose price is designed to be pegged to a cryptocurrency, fiat money or exchange commodity. In other words a stablecoin relies on a more stable asset as a basis for its value.

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USDC is seen as a pillar of the blockchain ecosystem.

USDC is seen as a pillar of the blockchain ecosystem. The USDC software is open-source and is managed by an organisation that drives standards for the adoption of trusted stablecoins, and enforces payment and identity standards; this organisation is called Centre Consortium.

The USDC is available on most of the world's most powerful and innovative block chains. The fact that USDC offers a broad, native availability and the ability to seamlessly swap across the blockchain ecosystems, means that developers who build with USDC are able to extend their reach.

The Centre Consortium's second major standard provides decentralised identity for crypto finance, called Verite. Verite is a collection of standardised protocols that can help make it safer, easier and more efficient to do business across the world of DeFi and Web3 commerce. Verite is free and anyone can use it and to build on.

USDC is considered a trusted store of value.

USDC is becoming more accessible and easier to use through more wallets, exchanges, protocols, platforms, apps and service providers are allowing these transactions. The coin is widely used for payments and seems to be breaking border issues in international transactions, as it becomes more popular in the business world. USDC is considered a trusted store of value.

There are many ways that investors can use the USDC trading platform, these are listed below.

1. USDC makes use of Decentralised Finance (DeFi), the use of smart contracts has eliminated the need for financial intermediaries, the smart contracts automatically link buyers, sellers, borrowers and lenders, this opens access to the financial market up to more people.
2. For those users who prefer Centralised Finance (CeFi), there is the option to invest in the USDC where they can earn a predictable yield on their investments. In addition the CeFi service allows institutional accredited investors to allocate funds to “Circle Yield” - this is a fixed term investment that is built on USDC and is overcollateralized with Bitcoin.
3. Digital Asset Trading is common amongst USDC users, they use USDC as a base currency for quickly entering and exiting positions in crypto capital markets globally. This service is more common amongst retail investors and institutional traders.
4. Traditional and crypto-native businesses use the coin in business. Corporate brands and gaming companies are making use of USDC to build marketplaces for NTFs and other digital assets, they hope this will improve customer engagement through improved brand experience.
5. Global payments and remittances: USDC allows users to transfer value globally, at high speed and extremely low costs. It also allows users to easily transfer value back into fiat currencies.
6. USDC is available to almost anybody who has access to the internet. It is easy to gain US Dollar exposure through investing in the USDC, and use it to trade, for payments and transfers.

Investors and businesses all over the world are using the USDC smart contracts as a tool for building the future of commerce.

We can see from the chart below that the price saw big increases before COVID-19 and then the price fell sharply in light of the COVD-19 pandemic which swayed investor sentiment and made investors risk averse. Since then the price has been quite stable despite the current negative investor sentiment in the market since late February.

With all cryptocurrencies, we have seen observed that although cryptocurrencies are decentralised, they are in fact affected by market performance and investor sentiment.

USDC Price Chart

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The Advantages of USDC

1. An advantage of USDC is that it is fully backed by cash and short-dated U.S. government obligations so that it is always redeemable 1:1 US dollars. Each month attestation reports regarding the reserve balances backing the USDC is published. This creates more transparency in the coin and therefore more investor confidence.
2. Price stability.
3. Lots of liquidity.
4. Good reputation and backed by Circle’s assets.

Sources: circle.com, finance.yahoo.com, sofi.com