USDC (Circle) — a digital dollar on the blockchain

USDC in plain words

The full English name of this stablecoin is USD Coin, and its ticker is USDC.

USDC is easiest to picture as a digital dollar that lives on a blockchain, that is, on the shared record of transfers kept by thousands of computers. You can send it over the internet to anyone, day or night, while the real dollar stays in the account of the company Circle.

Picture a freelancer in Latin America who is paid by a client abroad. An ordinary bank transfer from another country would take several days and lose part of the amount to fees and currency conversion. Instead, the client sends the payment in USDC, and it arrives within minutes, in dollars, on any day of the week. From there the freelancer decides whether to keep the USDC as dollar savings or swap it for local currency when needed. This scenario is covered in freelance payments and protection from inflation.

How the USDC stablecoin works

How to send USDC without mistakes

Before sending USDC, check three things:

1. The sender and the recipient must be on the same network. A network is the system where transfers are recorded (Ethereum, Solana and others), and if you pick the wrong one, the recipient may not see the money, and getting it back will be hard.
2. Do not send USDC on the Tron network: Circle no longer issues USDC there¹.
3. The network charges a small fee for the transfer in its own coin, such as ETH on Ethereum or SOL on Solana, so you usually need a little of that coin in your wallet. Some apps can pay the fee for you or take it in USDC (on network fees), and on Circle's Arc network the fee is paid in USDC anyway².

If your wallet says USDC.e, it is a copy of USDC brought over from another network through a bridge, that is, a service that moves tokens between networks. Circle will not redeem it one to one directly³. When buying, choose plain USDC. How to send a transfer step by step is explained in how to send crypto.

USDC tokens are created when Circle receives dollars and burned when they are redeemed

New USDC appears only when Circle receives real dollars: it issues exactly the same amount of USDC, and when tokens come back to be exchanged for dollars, they are burned. Circle's reserves are therefore never smaller than the amount of USDC in circulation⁴. This way of issuing is explained in more detail in what is issuance.

In practice it works like this. A business sends Circle, say, 1,000 dollars by ordinary bank transfer and receives 1,000 USDC; to redeem, it returns 1,000 USDC and gets 1,000 dollars back, and the tokens are burned. Companies make this exchange through the Circle Mint service⁵. In the EEA (the European Economic Area: the EU countries, Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein), under the MiCA rules, any holder has the right to redeem USDC with Circle one to one after an identity check, and the money arrives in a bank account in the EEA. Circle charges no fee for this, and the payout takes up to 5 business days ⚖️⁶. Outside the EEA, only Circle Mint business clients redeem directly with Circle. Everyone else simply sells it on an exchange, and how to sell and withdraw shows how.

What backs USDC and how the reserves are checked

Behind every USDC sit dollar assets: cash dollars in bank accounts and short-term bonds of the US government, held separately from the company's own money⁷. Once a month one of the Big Four audit firms (the four largest in the world) checks that the reserves cover every token issued and publishes a report⁴. This kind of check is called an attestation. The checker looks at whether there is enough money on a specific day and does not examine the company's whole business (what are reserves).

Who issues USDC and under what rules

USDC is issued by Circle through its regulated companies in the US, Bermuda and France⁷. The token itself appeared in September 2018⁸.

In July 2025 the US passed a dedicated stablecoin law, the GENIUS Act, and its effective date is 18 January 2027 ⚖️⁹¹⁰. The European Union has common rules for crypto called MiCA. Since 1 July 2024 Circle has issued both USDC and the euro stablecoin EURC under them, through its French company, which holds a licence to issue electronic money ⚖️¹¹.

Which networks USDC runs on

USDC exists on many blockchains at once, including Ethereum, Solana, Base and Avalanche. The list changes over time, so check the exact set of networks on Circle's site

⁷. Circle has closed some networks, Tron among them.

How USDC differs from USDT and from dollars in a bank account

USDC's main neighbour is USDT, another dollar stablecoin, with a different issuer and more tokens in circulation.

Both hold the dollar's price and work in a similar way, and the table shows where they part ways with each other and with ordinary dollars in a bank account.

	USDC	USDT	Bank
Stays near one dollar?	yes	yes	yes
Sends abroad in minutes?	yes	yes	no
Reserves checked every month?	yes	no1	no
Sold on major EU exchanges?	yes	no	n/a
Can it be blocked?	yes	yes	yes
Can a mistaken transfer be reversed?	no	no	varies
Can anyone redeem one to one with the issuer?	in EEA3	no3	yes
Government deposit insurance?	no4	no4	yes2

1. Tether publishes a reserve report once a quarter, and for 2025 it passed a full audit for the first time (KPMG). ↩
2. Up to the deposit insurance limit in your country. ↩
3. Verified clients redeem directly with the issuer: for USDC, Circle Mint clients, and in the EEA any holder after an identity check ⚖️; for USDT, from a large amount. ↩
4. Governments do not insure a stablecoin the way they insure a bank deposit ⚖️¹². If the reserves sit in an insured bank, the issuer is insured and the token holder is not¹³. Exchange insurance funds protect the exchange itself against hacks and are not deposit insurance¹⁴. ↩

Pros and cons of USDC, USDT and dollars in a bank account

The right choice depends on what matters more to you: the checks and rules of USDC, the wide reach of USDT, or the protection and guarantees of an ordinary bank account.

What USDC is used for

• Getting paid for work and settling accounts in dollars without slow bank transfers, as in the freelancer example (freelance payments).
• Sending money to family and friends abroad when an ordinary bank transfer is too slow or too expensive (remittances to family).
• Keeping part of your money in dollars if you do not want to depend on your local currency (protection from inflation).

Large payment companies are adding USDC too, Stripe and Visa among them¹⁵¹⁶.

USDC risks

• Circle can block a particular address, and the right to redeem the tokens on it for dollars is lost along with them. This already happened in August 2022, when Circle froze USDC at addresses that had come under US sanctions¹⁷.
• If the bank holding the reserves runs into trouble, the peg to the dollar can wobble. That happened in March 2023: after the US bank Silicon Valley Bank collapsed, it emerged that 3.3 billion dollars of USDC reserves were stuck there, and on 11 March the token's price briefly fell to about 0.87 dollars, then returned to the dollar within a few days (what is a depeg)¹⁸.
• USDC runs on different networks, and picking the wrong network or sending on the closed Tron network can cost money. This risk comes down to how carefully you make the transfer.
• What you can do with USDC depends on local regulation, and the rules change over time ⚖️.

Where to check current USDC data

Reserve composition and monthly reports, the list of networks and the official contract addresses are on Circle's site.

Check USDC's price and how far it strays from the dollar on a rate aggregator.

More detail on USDC history, closed networks and partners

At first USDC was managed by Centre, a joint project of Circle and the exchange Coinbase⁸. In August 2023 that project was closed, control of USDC passed fully to Circle, and Coinbase received a stake in the company in return¹⁹. Since 5 June 2025 Circle's shares have traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the ticker CRCL²⁰, so the company must disclose its financial reports regularly and publicly. European issuance goes through Circle's French company under MiCA¹¹.

In February 2024 Circle stopped issuing USDC on Tron, and Circle Mint clients were allowed to move those tokens to other networks or redeem them for dollars until February 2025¹. In September 2024 Circle closed USDC on the Flow network²¹. Bridged USDC.e first has to go back to its original network, and only then can Circle redeem it³. Circle launched its own network, Arc, in September 2026².

Since October 2024 Stripe has again let US merchants accept payments in USDC²²¹⁵. Visa began testing USDC settlement in 2021, and in December 2025 it launched it for US banks on the Solana network¹⁶. In September 2025 MoneyGram launched an app in Colombia that lets people receive and hold money in USDC²³. In December 2022 the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) used USDC to pay aid to people affected by the war in Ukraine²⁴.

The freeze in August 2022 hit the addresses of the Tornado Cash service, which the US Treasury had put under sanctions¹⁷.

1. launch 09.2018 Wikipedia, «USDC (cryptocurrency)» en.wikipedia.org ↩
2. reserve composition (cash + short-term US government bonds, separate accounts) Circle, «USDC» circle.com ↩
3. monthly reserve reports, a Big Four firm Circle, «Transparency» circle.com ↩
4. right of redemption in the EEA after an identity check Circle, «MiCA Redemption Policy» circle.com; direct redemption for business clients Circle, «Circle Mint» developers.circle.com ↩
5. ability to freeze an address The Block, «Circle freezes USDC funds in Tornado Cash's US Treasury-sanctioned wallets» theblock.co ↩
6. list of networks (more than 30, changes) Circle, «USDC» circle.com ↩
7. USDC issuing companies in three countries Circle, «USDC» circle.com ↩

Frequently asked questions