How to Buy US Dollar Stablecoin USDC in Canada

USDC Stablecoin Tl;dr

Founded: 2018

Founders: Circle

Governance Consortium: Centre.io a partnership between Circle and Coinbase

Website: https://www.circle.com/en/usdc / https://www.centre.io/usdc

Whitepaper: https://f.hubspotusercontent30.net/hubfs/9304636/PDF/centre-whitepaper.pdf

Cryptocurrency symbol: USDC

Coin limit: No limit

Purpose: Asset-backed token. Payments

Other: USDC is available on multiple blockchains

Financial Products: USDC can be used as a yield-producing asset.

What is USDC?

United States Dollar Coin (USDC) is a stablecoin backed by a basket of US denominated financial assets on a 1:1 basis for each coin. Assets include US cash and cash equivalents as well as various short term debt instruments like US treasuries. All assets are regularly audited by Grant Thornton.

USD Coin was created in the United States by Circle in partnership with Coinbase. Governance for USDC is provided by partners through the Centre consortium.

USDC is the second largest US dollar stablecoin internationally by total assets held.

The use cases include being used as an onramp from the traditional banking system into crypto. It can also be used as a method of payment, exchange or settlement on the VISA network.

What is a stablecoin?

A stablecoin is a cryptocurrency token that is backed by an asset. Assets used to back stablecoins can include fiat currencies like USD and CAD as well as hard assets like gold and silver. They can also include other financial assets.

Using a fiat currency-backed token (stablecoin) eliminates the volatility of holding assets in certain cryptocurrencies.

Stablecoins act as a bridge between the traditional financial system and the cryptocurrency financial system.

What is the difference between USDC and Tether?

USDT (Tether) is the first US dollar stablecoin and the most widely known. Originally called Realcoin, Tether was founded by Craig Sellers, Brock Pierce and Reeve Collins in 2014. Tether’s main operation is located in Hong Kong.

Tether is available on Ethereum, Bitcoin, EOS, TRON, Algorand, SLP and OMG blockchains. On Ethereum, Tether is an ERC20 token. On Bitcoin, it uses the Omni layer and Blockstream’s Liquid.

Each Tether token is claimed to be backed by 1 USD in Tether reserves. Tether also supports other fiat currencies through EURT and CNHT.

Tether is tied to the Bitfinex exchange through its relationship with its mutual parent Ifinex Inc. Tether has been mired in controversy since its founding. This includes questions about reserves and various fines. There are also some restrictions on using Tether for US residents.