USD Coin (USDC) is a fully collateralized US Dollar stable coin. It is built on the open source fiat stable coin framework developed by CENTRE, and Circle is the first of several forthcoming issuers of USDC.

USDC is designed to minimize price volatility and it does so by ensuring that every unit of USDC is only created when a corresponding US Dollar is deposited into a reserve bank account. Its major application at this point is as a mechanism for trading and hedging in global crypto capital markets. However, USDC is being adopted for use cases such as lending, payments, investments, and further applications within financial contracts such as derivatives contracts, insurance contracts, and security tokens.

Commercial issuers of USDC are required by CENTRE to be licensed to handle electronic money; have audited AML and Compliance programs that meet FATF standards; back all tokens on a fully reserved basis and provide monthly published proof of reserves attested to by certified public auditors; support fungible exchange and redemption of USDC tokens from other authorized issuer members; meet other reporting and review requirements established by CENTRE Note that as a fully collateralized stablecoin, the supply is determined by the USD deposits being taken on issuing services such as circle.com/usdc.

Recently, CENTRE announced that Coinbase is joining Circle as a founding member of CENTRE Consortium, and as part of this USDC is now available on Coinbase Pro and coinbase.com.