USDC (USD Coin) is a stablecoin created by the company Circle in partnership with Coinbase, managed by the Centre Consortium. Its main feature is being pegged to the value of the US dollar (USD) at a 1:1 ratio. This means that each USDC is backed by equivalent reserves in dollars or highly liquid assets, such as US Treasury securities.
Main Features of USDC:
Price Stability:
It is designed to maintain a stable price of 1 USDC ≈ 1 USD, making it useful for transactions, protection against volatility, and value storage.
Transparency and Compliance:
Reserves are regularly audited by third-party firms to ensure that there is backing corresponding to the number of tokens in circulation.
It complies with financial regulations in the United States, which gives it greater credibility compared to other stablecoins.
Platform and Uses:
Initially built on the Ethereum blockchain (ERC-20 standard), but also available on other networks like Solana, Polygon, Avalanche, among others.
It is widely used in digital transactions, international payments, staking, lending, and as a means of exchange on decentralized exchanges (DEX).
Speed and Costs:
It allows for fast and cheap transactions compared to traditional banking systems.
Applications:
E-commerce: Facilitates international payments.
DeFi: Widely used in decentralized finance protocols.
Trading: Provides a less volatile alternative for traders during market movements.
Growth:
It is one of the most popular stablecoins in the market, competing with others such as Tether (USDT) and Binance USD (BUSD).
