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Fully backed digital dollars

Built for rapid global payments and 24/7 financial markets, USDC is a regulated digital currency you can redeem 1:1 for US dollars.

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Speed

Why businesses choose USDC

USDC works seamlessly across applications and platforms around the globe, using blockchain infrastructure that’s faster, less expensive, and more customizable than legacy rails.

Stable & regulated

USDC is regulated1 and fully reserved. Reserves are transparently held at regulated financial institutions with published monthly attestations.

Unregulated, non-transparent stablecoins take risk with their reserves and do not legally separate them for the benefit of stablecoin holders.

Instant settlement

USDC transactions can settle in seconds worldwide. All day, every day.

Legacy payments can take multiple days to settle and don’t move after hours, on weekends, or during holidays.

Near-zero cost

Global payments can be made for less than a cent, so it’s affordable to send USDC.

Traditional payments pass through multiple intermediaries, introducing additional cost that’s passed on to the sender.

Open, global access

Businesses and people with an internet connection and digital wallet can send and receive USDC.

Senders and receivers typically need bank accounts and specific apps or platforms to transact.

Widely used

USDC is readily available on popular exchanges and protocols, and thousands of developers are building with USDC.

Many private stablecoins are only usable within certain financial products, providing less utility.

 

Get USDC

Get access to USDC through a network of providers.2

visit USDC.com

Looking to access and distribute USDC at scale? Explore Circle Mint and see if you qualify.

Dollar stability & global reach

USDC enables businesses to offer payment connectivity and dollar-backed financial services to more people in more places.

  • Cross-Border Payments
  • Global Dollar Access
  • Crypto Capital Markets

Send and receive funds faster

Enable low-cost payments around the world that can settle in seconds, for you or your customers.

Learn more
Partners

Payroll

International remittances

P2P payments

Marketplace payouts

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Expand access to dollars

Offer customers greater financial stability by enabling them to access digital dollars around the world.

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Partners

Exchange

Bank

Fintech

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Reduce operational risk

Integrate responsibly managed stablecoins that you and your customers can trust.

Learn more
Partners

Exchange

DeFi Protocol

Lender

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Integrate & build with USDC

Power US dollar payments and financial services in your app globally. Integrate USDC using flexible, enterprise-grade tools and your preferred languages.

Visit Developer Hub

Fortifying trust with transparency

Circle stablecoin reserve composition and monthly attestations are publicly available, so you always know USDC is redeemable 1:1 for US dollars. USDC reserves are held in the management and custody of leading financial institutions and designed to provide holders with ready liquidity.

View Reserves
$33.7B

USDC in Circulation

As of July 25, 2024

$33.9B

USDC Reserves*

As of July 25, 2024

See disclosures

FAQs

USDC is a digital dollar backed 100% by highly liquid cash and cash-equivalent assets and is redeemable 1:1 for US dollars. The majority of the USDC reserve is invested in the Circle Reserve Fund (USDXX), an SEC-registered 2a-7 government money market fund. Daily, independent, third-party reporting on the portfolio is publicly available via BlackRock.

Learn more about our approach to transparency.

Circle Mint enables liquidity providers and qualified businesses to redeem USDC 1:1 for USD.

Everyday users can use digital wallets and exchanges to convert between USDC and local currency.

USDC is natively supported for 16 blockchain networks: Algorand, Arbitrum, Avalanche, Base, Celo, Ethereum, Flow, Hedera, NEAR, Noble, OP Mainnet, Polkadot, Polygon PoS, Solana, Stellar, and ZKsync – with more expected in the future.

USDC has also been bridged to many emerging blockchains by third-party bridges, resulting in the creation of bridged forms of USDC such as USDC.e.

For more details, see our developer docs.

Businesses can apply for a Circle Mint account to exchange US dollars for USDC. When a business deposits USD into their Circle Account, Circle issues the equivalent amount of USDC to the business. The process of issuing new USDC is known as “minting.” This process creates new USDC in circulation.

Similarly, when a business wants to exchange their USDC for US dollars, the business can deposit USDC into their Circle Mint account and request to receive US dollars. This process of redeeming USDC is known as “burning.” This process takes USDC out of circulation.

When US dollars are swapped for USDC on a digital asset exchange, the exchange will typically provide the balance of USDC it has on-hand to fulfill the swap. If the exchange needs more USDC to fulfill the swap, the exchange will often use its Circle Mint account to mint more USDC.

USDC is a fully reserved stablecoin, which is a type of cryptocurrency, or digital dollar. Unlike other cryptocurrencies that fluctuate in price, USDC is designed to maintain price equivalence to the US dollar. USDC is a stable store of value that benefits from the speed and security of blockchain technology.

USDC is issued by Circle, a company in the private sector, while a CBDC would be issued by a government. While most CBDCs are only in the research phase, USDC exists today and is widely used by millions of people around the world. Circle has developed the technology to enable USDC to run on 15 public blockchain networks, with open-source and private market innovation driving rapid progress in dollar digital currency models.

Read more about Circle’s insights on the Federal Reserve’s CBDC discussion.
stateofusdc-report-cover

2024 outlook

Unleashing the power of open money

There’s a new internet financial system emerging thanks to USDC, Web3, blockchain networks, and the collaboration of some of the world’s best developers and technology companies.

Read Report
1 See Circle’s licenses
2 Reference to any specific company, product, service, or website of any third party does not constitute an implied or express endorsement, recommendation, favoring or validation by Circle. The content presented on this website is intended for informational purposes only, and should not be construed as legal, tax, investment, financial or other advice. Reliance upon this website or any content presented is at the sole discretion of the reader; Circle shall not be liable for any damage or loss relating to the use of or reliance upon any such content or information presented.
*USDC is backed by the equivalent value of US dollar denominated assets held as reserves for the benefit of USDC holders. Cash is held at regulated financial institutions. The portfolio of the Circle Reserve Fund, which can contain short-dated US Treasuries, overnight US Treasury repurchase agreements, and cash, is custodied at The Bank of New York Mellon and is managed by BlackRock.