USDC Reserves to Be Held in Cash and US Treasury Bills Only, Centre Says

United States Dollar Coin, which is currently the world’s leading regulated stablecoin, has decided to hold its reserves in cash and US treasury bills only. This news comes months after its issuer extended the investment portfolio.

In a blog post published on August 22, Centre announced that the reserves will be restricted to cash and US treasuries only. Circle, which is a peer-to-peer payment technology company, is the issuer of USDC stable coin. According to the blogpost, Circle reserves lengthened beyond cash and its equivalents in May 2021. To adhere to the community belief of lucidity and honesty, Circle, along with Centre and Coinbase decided to restrict the reserves solely to cash and short duration US treasuries.

The updates are being made promptly, and the future attestation reports published by Grant Thorton, who is Centre’s auditing authority, will reflect the new changes of the USDC’s $22 Billion reserves.

Emily Choi, the Chief Operating Officer of Coinbase tweeted recently that the updates in the investment portfolio for USDC reserves will not go beyond September. According to Choi, the next two attestation reports from June and July reflect a diversified portfolio, which will start altering from August.

Having said that, the firm has expanded the USDC reserves by adding Yankee Certificate of Deposit (13%), Commercial Paper (9%), Corporate Bonds (5%), and Municipal Bonds & US Agencies (0.2%). It was also noted that Coinbase deftly altered the description for USDC on its website by stating that each USDC was backed by one US dollar “in a bank account”.

USDC is managed by a Consortium called Centre and was founded by Circle and Coinbase to establish an international standard for fiat-based internet-native digital currency. The technology behind Centre enables convenient monetary transfers in much the same way as content and data flow on the internet. According to the blog, by reversing the reserves back to cash and US treasury, Centre is acknowledging the engagement from USDC users and stakeholders by emphasizing the ability of the community to contribute towards better opportunities. It is also contemplating various methods by which members could become more fittingly involved with the Centre’s standards and governance activities.

USDC is vigorously involved in all the major exchanges and Decentralised Finance (DeFi) protocols, consequently being utilized in several payment methods across an increasing number of applications. USDC is currently live on five blockchain networks and aims to come up on many more via the Centre’s standards and processes.