USDC (USDC)USD

USDC (USD Coin) is a fiat-backed stablecoin pegged to the U.S. dollar, representing tokenized dollars on public blockchains. It is issued by Circle Internet Group and was created through the Centre consortium, which Circle and Coinbase jointly founded in 2018 to govern the project. USDC launched in September 2018 as an ERC-20 token on Ethereum, with exchange listings following in the weeks after. The token does not run on its own blockchain or consensus mechanism. Instead, it is a smart-contract token that relies on the consensus of whatever host chain it runs on, such as Ethereum's proof-of-stake network. The ticker is USDC, and the token is used primarily for on-chain payments, trading, and dollar transfers between bank accounts and blockchain addresses. Each USDC is backed one-to-one by dollar-equivalent reserves held off-chain. New tokens are minted or burned as users deposit or redeem dollars, so the circulating supply fluctuates with demand and has no fixed maximum. It is one of the most widely used stablecoins for moving dollar value across blockchain networks.