USDC
KLEAR3 ResearchPublished 2026-08-25Updated
ArbitrumPolygon
StellarUSDCUSDC is the second dollar token on this list and the one whose contract code you can actually read. We measured 50,331,957,599 of it on Ethereum, roughly two thirds of the reported circulation, spread across 34 chains in total.
What does USDC actually do?
USDC is a claim on a dollar, issued by a company that says it holds one for each token. The chain moves it; the promise sits off-chain. Everything that matters about it therefore happens in two places at once, and only one of them is public.
The on-chain half is the easy half. A contract keeps a ledger of balances, anyone can read it, and we did. What no chain can show you is whether the dollars exist, which is why a stablecoin is never really a technical question.
Against the larger dollar token, the useful difference is not size but readability: this contract has a public repository under a recognised free licence, and that one does not. It says nothing about the reserves of either, which are the part that decides whether a dollar token holds.
We did not examine the reserves, the attestations or their auditors. That is a deliberate limit of this campaign rather than a judgement on what those documents say.
Source GitHub https://api.github.com/repos/circlefin/stablecoin-evm, read 2026-08-25
Is the code actually open?
Yes, under Apache-2.0, with 13 releases and a repository open since February 2018. But the address the leading aggregator publishes, centrehq/centre-tokens, answers 301: the code now lives under circlefin, the issuer’s own organisation. The link still works, and it names an entity that no longer maintains anything.
Here the redirect points somewhere more sensible than it started, which is the opposite of the usual story, and the stale link is still a stale link. A reader who follows it sees a name that no longer describes who maintains the code.
The same defect sits on the entry two places above, where the published address still names a company while the code has moved to a foundation. Two redirects and one outright wrong repository, across ten profiles.
Source GitHub API https://api.github.com/repos/centrehq/centre-tokens, read 2026-08-25
No audit report is published in the repository, and none is listed. For a contract this widely held that is worth stating plainly, and it remains an absence of reports rather than a verdict.
Source OpenZeppelin — Bridged USDC Support Audit, read 2026-08-26
Is anyone still working on it?
Barely, and that is the expected answer. The repository took 4 commits from 3 identities in the 90 days to 25 August 2026. A deployed token contract is meant to stop changing; heavy activity here would be the thing worth worrying about.
This is the one place on this site where a low number is not a warning. A contract that holds tens of billions should be boring, because every change is a change to something already trusted by everyone using it.
The count is exact rather than capped: four objects is far below the hundred-per-page ceiling, so no pagination was needed to read it correctly.
Source GitHub https://api.github.com/repos/circlefin/stablecoin-evm/commits?since=2026-05-27T00:00:00Z&per_page=100, read 2026-08-25
- The repository opens
Where does it actually run?
On 34 chains, of which we measured one. On Ethereum the contract returned 50 331 957 599 tokens at block 25 834 208, about 68 % of reported circulation. The other 32 % we take from the aggregator, and we say so.
The distinction is the whole method of this site. We read the Ethereum balance from the chain itself; everything beyond it is reported to us. Two thirds measured and one third taken on trust is a different claim from a single tidy total, and the tidy total is what most pages print.
For anyone holding it, the multi-chain spread carries the same practical trap as every other token on several chains: an address on one chain means nothing on another, and the ticker does not warn you.
Source ethereum-rpc.publicnode.com https://ethereum-rpc.publicnode.com — eth_call totalSupply(), read 2026-08-25
ArbitrumPolygonStellarAptosWhat the token actually does
It stands in for a dollar and moves like a chain balance. There is no cap and no schedule: supply grows when someone deposits and shrinks when someone redeems, which makes it the opposite of a fixed-issuance asset in every way that matters.
73,645,313,495 were reported in circulation on the day we read it, against no ceiling at all. That is a design, not an oversight: a token pegged to a dollar has to be able to follow demand in both directions, or the peg is what breaks.
Compare it with an asset whose issuance is fixed in code and the two answer opposite questions. One is built to be scarce; this one is built to be elastic, and its worth depends on a promise held somewhere off the chain.
- What the token is forDirectly verified
- How many existDirectly verified
- Which contract is the official oneDirectly verified
- How new ones appearNot verified
- Who can change the rulesNot verified
KLEAR3 rating
- Open code5
public repository · Apache-2.0 licence · 13 published releases · 4 commits in 90 days
- Audits0
absence searched for: 20 firm indexes swept, 3,573 reports, none commissioned by the project
What holds it back 3 public audits around the token — the bridge, the cross-chain transfer — none on the contract itself · no report opened: we do not know what they found
- Business modelnot measured
What holds it back business model not established from a primary source
- Governance2
decided by decision-de-l-emetteur, with no vote
What holds it back no public proposal process among its 98 open repositories
- Token alignment1
supply measured, with no cap: nothing bounds issuance · circulating share known
What holds it back emission schedule unknown
- Maturity5
8 years of public code · 1 network verified by us · 7 networks in total
We rate the protocol: how it is built, how much of it can be checked, how its token lines up. Never an investment. A high score is not advice to buy, and a low one is not advice to sell.
What we could not establish
The reserves, the attestations, governance, and the supply on 33 of the 34 chains. We read the contract on Ethereum and the repository, nothing else, and we do not describe what we have not opened. The reserves are the gap that decides everything else.
The reserves are the gap that matters, and no amount of chain reading closes it. A dollar token is a legal and accounting object wearing a technical costume, and this campaign only measured the costume.
Frequently asked questions
Is USDC safer than Tether?
We did not establish that, and nothing on this page supports either answer. What we can report is narrower: USDC has a public contract repository under a free licence, and Tether does not. That is a difference in what you can read, not in what backs either token.
The temptation is to treat openness as a proxy for solvency. It is not. Readable code tells you how the token moves, never whether the dollars are there, and the second question is the one that decides a peg.
Both issuers publish reserve documents. We did not read them in this campaign, so this page does not compare them, and any page that ranks the two without reading them is ranking on something else, usually on reputation rather than on evidence. Reputation is a real input and it is not a measurement.
Why does the supply have no cap?
Because a cap would break the peg. Tokens are created when someone deposits dollars and destroyed when someone redeems them, so the supply has to follow demand. A fixed ceiling would force the price away from a dollar as soon as demand exceeded it, and the peg is the entire product.
This is the structural difference between a stablecoin and a scarce asset, and it is worth keeping straight when reading supply charts. A rising stablecoin supply is a demand signal, not inflation.
It also means the interesting number is not the total but the flow: how much was created and destroyed over a period. We did not measure that flow here, and we do not report it. A total tells you where the demand has landed, never how fast it moved.
Does it matter which chain I hold USDC on?
Yes, in two ways. Practically, an address on one chain cannot receive the same token from another without a bridge. Structurally, each chain carries its own risks, and holding the same ticker in two places is not holding the same thing twice, whatever the balance screen says.
The bridge point is where most losses happen, and the ticker gives no warning at all. The name is identical everywhere and the addresses are not interchangeable, which is a trap built into the format rather than into any one issuer.
We measured the balance on one chain out of thirty-four. Anyone deciding where to hold it would want the same measurement on theirs, and that measurement is public: the contract answers to anyone who asks, at no cost and in one call. No permission is involved.
Next: our Tron profile shows a chain that carries a large share of the other dollar token, and our Figure HELOC profile shows a different way of putting an off-chain claim on a chain.
Ask an assistant to summarise it and check what it claims.