USDC is issued by Circle Internet Group, co-founded by Jeremy Allaire and Sean Neville in 2013. In 2018, Circle partnered with Coinbase to launch USDC through the Centre Consortium. In August 2023, Coinbase acquired a minority stake in Circle, the Centre Consortium was dissolved, and Circle became the sole issuer of USDC.

Key milestones include the USDC testnet launch in May 2018, the official launch in October 2018 via Centre Consortium, the brief depeg incident in March 2023 following the Silicon Valley Bank collapse, the dissolution of Centre Consortium in August 2023 with Circle becoming sole issuer, the launch of CCTP cross-chain protocol in April 2023, and reaching $61.3 billion in circulation by Q2 2025 with 90% year-over-year growth.

USDC is natively deployed on over 15 blockchain networks including Ethereum, Solana, Arbitrum, Avalanche, Base, Polygon, Optimism, and Noble as an ERC-20 and chain-specific token. Circle's Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol enables direct USDC transfers between chains by burning on the source chain and minting on the destination, eliminating wrapped token risks and liquidity fragmentation.

USDC maintains a strict 1:1 peg to the US dollar, fully backed by reserves composed of cash and short-dated US Treasury bills held at US-regulated financial institutions. Circle publishes monthly audited reserve attestations from Grant Thornton. The interest income generated from reserves is shared between Circle and Coinbase based on their respective USDC holdings.

Circle serves as the sole issuer and governance entity of USDC, responsible for smart contract keys, regulatory compliance, and operational management. Following the August 2023 restructuring, Coinbase no longer shares governance responsibilities but maintains an equity stake in Circle and continues to share reserve interest income with Circle based on USDC distribution on each platform.

USDC serves multiple use cases including DeFi liquidity provision, exchange trading pairs, cross-border payments, and institutional settlement. Visa settles select payments in USDC on the Solana blockchain. Major banks such as Cross River Bank and Lead Bank use USDC for real-time settlement. CCTP supports native cross-chain USDC transfers across more than 10 networks including Solana, Arbitrum, Avalanche, Base, and Polygon.