Perhaps we should consider changing the name of the crypto market to something like stable market?
Last year was the year of ICOs, this one seems to be the year of stablecoins. After being the sole stablecoin in the market, Tether is seeing his family of stablecoins being bigger by day. GUSD, TUSD, MKR, HUSD and USDC – no, I am not having a stroke, these are tickers for all the stablecoins on the market.
The last one to be added to this list is USDC – a Coinbase and Circle backed stablecoin launched on Ethereum blockchain and announced on October 23rd – today.
This one, as all others, is essentially a digital representation of US dollar, pegged to it in the 1:1 ratio.
As the official announcement states, the role of this new coin is multifaceted, including:
Use cases for USDC today include:
- Improved send and receive. Two Ethereum wallets can quickly send and receive any amount of USDC at any time of day. Large transfers for business purposes become as easy as small e-commerce payments. Consumers can use the Coinbase app to send USDC to someone, while remaining confident the value is stable.
- Use in dApps and exchanges. There is a burgeoning ecosystem of crypto dApps, exchanges, and blockchain-based games. A USDC follows the ERC20 standard, which means it can be used with any app that accepts tokens based on that standard. The USDC can thus be used as a stable digital dollar to buy items in the crypto ecosystem, from Cryptokitties to tickets for blockchain-based games.
- A programmable dollar. For developers and fintech companies, a digital dollar like USDC is easier to program with. For example, given the private keys for USDC, a program can easily send and receive them back and forth using the public Ethereum blockchain.
