USD Coin
Overview
USDC is the reference asset for card-network stablecoin settlement. It is a fully reserved dollar token issued by Circle, redeemable 1:1, with reserves held in cash and short-dated US Treasuries and reported monthly.
Both card networks use it as their first settlement asset: Visa has experimented with USDC settlement since 2021, ran formal pilots from 2023, and brought USDC settlement to US partners in December 2025 (Cross River Bank and Lead Bank first), running over Solana. Mastercard enabled USDC and EURC settlement for acquirers in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa in August 2025 and included USDC in its June 2026 on-chain settlement expansion. In both programs USDC replaces fiat wires in the issuer/acquirer settlement leg only — the consumer-facing authorization flow is unchanged.
Card-network settlement support
The most widely supported settlement stablecoin: Visa has worked with USDC settlement since 2021 (formal pilots from 2023) and launched US-domestic USDC settlement in Dec 2025 (over Solana); Mastercard enabled USDC settlement for EEMEA acquirers in Aug 2025 and included USDC in its Jun 2026 settlement expansion.
Regulation & reserves
Cash and short-dated US Treasuries (Circle Reserve Fund, SEC-registered); monthly attestations by a Big Four accounting firm.
Chain deployments
| Chain | Standard | Final after | Contract / asset identifier |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ethereum | ERC-20 | ≈ 13–19 min | 0xA0b86991c6218b36c1d19D4a2e9Eb0cE3606eB48 |
| Solana | SPL | ≈ 13 s | EPjFWdd5AufqSSqeM2qN1xzybapC8G4wEGGkZwyTDt1v |
| Base | ERC-20 | ≈ 20 min | 0x833589fCD6eDb6E08f4c7C32D4f71b54bdA02913 |
| Arbitrum | ERC-20 | ≈ 15–20 min | 0xaf88d065e77c8cC2239327C5EDb3A432268e5831 |
| Polygon | ERC-20 | ≈ 2–5 s | 0x3c499c542cEF5E3811e1192ce70d8cC03d5c3359 |
| Avalanche | ERC-20 | < 2 s | 0xB97EF9Ef8734C71904D8002F8b6Bc66Dd9c48a6E |
| Stellar | Stellar asset | ≈ 5–7 s | USDC:GA5ZSEJYB37JRC5AVCIA5MOP4RHTM335X2KGX3IHOJAPP5RE34K4KZVN asset code : issuer account Amount scale on Stellar: 7 decimals |
| Arc | Native gas asset (EVM) | < 1 s | Circle’s own L1, mainnet live since 16 Sep 2026 — USDC pays gas and is also exposed through an ERC-20 interface; take the address from Arc’s official contract-address reference. One balance, two scales: native gas / msg.value use 18 decimals, the ERC-20 interface 6 (Arc docs, “Stablecoin-native model”). |
Always verify contract addresses against the issuer’s official documentation before use — lookalike tokens with identical symbols are a common scam vector.