Nearly two years after the USD Coin (USDC) was created, the stablecoin recently surpassed the $1 billion market cap, retaining its position as the second-largest stablecoin in the market.
Launched in September 2018, USDC is a product of the collaboration between leading US-based crypto exchange Coinbase and Goldman Sachs-backed payments company Circle. Like every other stablecoin, both companies created the USDC to help investors hedge against the volatility of cryptocurrencies.
The USDC is pegged 1:1 against the US dollar. The stablecoin has been growing steadily since its creation. However, a bulk of its growth was recorded in 2020 alone due to the COVID-19 induced financial meltdown. The stablecoin’s market valuation has almost doubled since the beginning of the year.
As of January 1, the market cap was $516 million, and the value surpassed the $1 billion mark within a space of six months. At the time of writing, USDC has a total market cap of $1,037,084,282.
Aside from the increased market cap, the stablecoin has seen a fair share of adoption and partnership. Last month, USDC issuer Circle announced a new collaboration with Algorand, a blockchain company based in Boston.
The alliance between both firms would allow Circle’s customers to use the USDC on the Algroland blockchain for secure transfer of funds between traditional banks and card networks. In other words, USDC users will be able to send money securely within seconds using Algorand.
USD Coin is not the only stablecoin with significant growth this year. The entire stablecoin market has risen meteorically from a mere $6 billion to more than $11 billion. Almost all major stablecoins, including Tether (USDT), TrueUSD (TUSD), Paxos (PAX), and DAI have surged between 50% and 120% since the start of 2020.
For instance, as of January 1, USDT held a market cap of around $4.7 billion. At the time of writing, however, the total market cap for Tether is above $9 billion, which is more than 100% growth in six months.
