$2.8M Worth of Fresh USDC Has Just Been Minted

$2.8M USDC has just been minted with many commenting that the market may soon rebound once this fresh money enters the market. Whale Alert (@whale_alert) is reporting that the currency was minted earlier today.

💵 2,800,000 #USDC (2,809,588 USD) minted at USDC Treasury

Tx: https://t.co/juPvMGZdJ7

— Whale Alert (@whale_alert) December 11, 2019

USD Coin (USDC) is the second-largest stablecoin in the cryptocurrency industry. It currently boasts a supply of $483M and is backed by dollars. Stored on the Ethereum blockchain, it is an open-source project led by Coinbase and Circle. Markets have thus far not responded to the minting but remain stable. Bitcoin is trading at $7,318 at the time of writing and is -0.38% down on the daily.

Accelerating Development

The news comes after another $19M USDC was minuted just last week. As BeInCrypto has previously reported, the new USDC was created on December 4th and was moved to an unknown wallet. In total, the circulating supply of USDC has increased by 50% this year due to fresh USD reserves being used to mint more of the stablecoin. This has allowed the asset to become the second-largest stablecoin in just a year’s time—an impressive feat considering the market dominance of Tether (USDT). USDC has been ramping up its development as we near the end of 2019, as well. In October, the stablecoin announced it would allow users to earn 1.25% annual interest on their holdings if kept on Coinbase. Rewards are distributed each month automatically and Coinbase has no right to use any USD Coin that one holds.

Could USDC Someday Catch up to Tether?

Altogether, Coinbase and Circle hope to position USDC to someday eclipse Tether but it still has a lot of catching up to do. At the time of writing, Tether has a market capitalization of $4.1B whereas USDC has a market capitalization of just $484M. However, Tether’s increasing legal and public scrutiny could give USDC an edge in 2020. The leading stablecoin is facing multiple court cases including one from October which alleges that Tether was manipulating Bitcoin’s price to the detriment of users. The lawsuit is demanding $1.4T in damages. it remains to be seen whether this will play out in USDC’s benefit in 2020.

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