Goldman Sachs startup Circle, the Boston-based crypto finance company, has gone live with its stablecoin called the US Dollar Coin, or USDC.
This is the first cryptocurrency released by a major financial institution.
In order to avoid instability and inflation inherent to other unregulated cryptocurrencies, the value of the USDC will be tied to the dollar, according to CNBC.
“It unlocks an incredible amount of power for the dollar,” said Jeremy Allaire, CEO of Circle. “It’s basically a dollar that operates on the (Ethereum) blockchain.”
“Ethereum is the best bet but it’s not necessarily the end game,” he said. “For now it’s specifically on Ethereum.”
The USDC will be regulated as a registered Money Services Business under U.S. money transmission laws, and as a virtual currency, it will be regulated under its New York BitLicense. Furthermore, the company said it will hold deposits on a 1:1 basis in accounts that would be audited on a monthly basis. Each entity that wishes to enroll and issue USDC is held to the same regulatory-compliant standards.
Circle has said that the USDC will initially be available on its native trading platforms like the Circle Trade and Circle’s Poloniex exchange, and later available on other platforms like KuCoin, OKCoin, CoinEx, and others.
In a blog post, they noted: “Individuals and institutions can enroll in this service to deposit U.S. dollars from bank accounts [and] convert those dollars into tokens usable everywhere the internet reaches (subject to the token’s compliance controls), and redeem USDC tokens and cash out to bank accounts.”
“A fundamental building block of this vision is the tokenization of fiat currency itself, through what is 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.”
“What makes us different is that it is launched on an open sourced framework, meaning other companies can issue it [assuming they are a member of the CENTRE consortium],” said Jeremy Allaire, founder, and CEO of Circle.
In another blog post by Circle, they discuss how the USDC has received support from a wide crypto ecosystem. Popular wallet services like BitGo, Coinbase, imToken, and Ledger have extended support for the USDC. Payment processing giant BitPay is also part of the CENTRE consortium among 30 other partners.
“There are a number of banks who are excited about it and will support it.”
This is the Fedcoin
The USDC is designed to replace the dollar and become its digital version. This is the first step in replacing fiat paper currencies as we, in their words, move towards “a crypto-powered global economy.”
As of Sept. 29, the value of the USDC was around .0005. Waking up Sunday morning, it now shows a dollar. According to valuation charts, it has always been a dollar since Sept. 27th. Go to coinlib and see for yourself. The image above showing a low-high 24-hour fluctuation of .0005 – .001 no longer exists. According to sources who invested in the USDC before it hit a dollar, they never saw any returns … it’s as if it was always valued at a dollar.
Coinbase On Track To Become The Crypto Regulatory Agency
Meanwhile, Coinbase has received approval from the SEC to move forward with a trio of acquisitions that will give the company the licenses it needs to list and trade federally regulated securities.