Definition
USDC
A US dollar stablecoin issued by Circle, widely used for cross-border investment transfers.
USDC is a dollar-denominated stablecoin issued by Circle, redeemable one-for-one for US dollars and backed by reserves held in cash and short-dated US Treasuries, with periodic attestation reporting. It is one of the two dominant dollar stablecoins by volume and the one most often chosen by institutions, because the issuer is US-regulated and the reserve reporting is public. In an SPV context USDC functions as a funding rail: an LP holding USDC can transfer dollar value in minutes rather than days, which matters when a close deadline is measured in hours. The transfer must still reference the correct deposit instruction, and the investor still completes the same KYC, accreditation, and subscription steps as a bank-rail investor.