$USDC ⚠️ USDC and the FTX Fallout: Circle’s Close Call 💥

When FTX collapsed in November 2022, panic rippled through crypto, and Circle’s USD Coin (USDC) felt the heat 🌪️. Launched in 2018 by Circle and Coinbase via the Centre Consortium 🤝, USDC, a dollar-pegged stablecoin 💵, had a $10.6M equity stake in FTX, a “tiny” exposure per Circle’s CEO Jeremy Allaire 📜. FTX also held a small stake in Circle from a 2021 $440M funding round 💰. No loans, no FTT tokens, just equity ties, Allaire clarified on X 🐦.The real shock came post-FTX, with $6B in USDC redemptions in 72 hours, slashing its market cap from $44.5B to $38B 😱. Binance’s auto-conversion of USDC to BUSD drained another $3B+ 📉. Then, in March 2023, USDC depegged to $0.87 after $3.3B of its reserves got trapped in Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse 🏦. Circle recovered fast, restoring the peg in days 💪. By February 2025, USDC’s market cap hit $56.2B, matching pre-FTX highs 📈. Now on 21 blockchains 🌐, USDC thrives despite the scare.