Crypto Finance Firm Circle launches USDC Stablecoin

Crypto finance company Circle and the CENTRE open source consortium has today introduced a service to tokenise US dollars and use those dollars over public blockchains on the Internet: USD Coin, also known as USDC.

Individuals and institutions can enroll in this service to deposit US dollars from bank accounts, convert those dollars into tokens usable everywhere the Internet reaches (subject to the token’s compliance controls), and redeem USDC.

In addition to immediate usage on Circle Poloniex and Circle Trade, more than 20 companies are also announcing or launching support for USDC today. Other wallets, exchanges, and software applications can add support for the USDC token through the open ERC-20 standard.

Price-stable tokens are foundational requirements for enabling powerful new global financial contracts, products, and services on the Internet. USDC is the first of several fiat tokens CENTRE expects to deliver, and Circle is the first of several forthcoming CENTRE members to launch USDC issuance.

Commenting on the announcement, Jeremy Allaire and Sean Neville, co-founders of Circle said: “When we founded Circle five years ago, we and many in the crypto community envisioned fiat money and financial contracts executing on top of distributed public network infrastructure, building on open standards that would allow us all to share value as instantly and easily as we can access content in web browsers and exchange messages in email and messaging apps. Just as HTTPS, SMTP and SIP enabled free borderless information sharing and communications, crypto assets and blockchain technology will enable us to exchange value and transact with one another in a similar way: instantly, globally, securely and at low cost.”

“A fundamental building block of this vision is the tokenization of fiat currency itself, through what are now referred to as fiat stablecoins. A safe, transparent and trustworthy layer for fiat to operate over open blockchains and within smart contracts is a necessary precondition to the broader and more revolutionary potential of a crypto-powered global economy. USDC aims to meet this need.”

Attached is the official blog from Circle co-founders Jeremy Allaire and Sean Neville, which provides more details about USDC, as well as release containing information about the partners backing the new stablecoin.