Provider at a glance
- Category
- Stablecoins
- Entity
- All 6 Circle products
- Official website
- circle.com
Independent rankingchecked How it works
Details
Scored 77 out of 100 under methodology 2026.10.18, from the evidence read in September 2026.
USDC
Circle's dollar stablecoin
Stablecoins
#2 Overall
Ranked #2 of 11 stablecoins in the published ranking
77
ChainChoice Score
The ChainChoice Score, shown against 100: published scores run from 41 to 99.- High evidence confidence
Is USDC right for you?
Right for you if these matter most
- Who owes you the dollar7/10, the category best
- Reserves and assurance8/10, the category best
Look elsewhere if these come first
- Redemption at par5/10 here; PayPal USD (PYUSD) scores 8
- Freeze and burn powers4/10 here; PayPal USD (PYUSD) scores 6
Not yet tested for your country. Markets it lists: Global.
to test where you can use it.
The rank above is the published one, the same for every reader. Find my best stablecoin shows where it lands for you.
What will USDC cost you?
Not priced on this basis
- Your monthly volume
- $1k
How safe is USDC?
- Evidence: verified4 of 4 criteria rest on quoted, sourced receipts. Read September 2026.
- LicenceMiCA (EU): no register record on file here.
- On the registersMiCA: authorised, CIRCLE INTERNET FINANCIAL EUROPE SAS (FR, since 2026-04-23). Read 3 November 2026. Open the register
Alternatives to USDC
Compare all 4- 1PayPal USD (PYUSD)2 points above · stronger on redemption at par (8 against 5)79$0.00
- 3Ripple USD (RLUSD)2 points below · stronger on freeze and burn powers (5 against 4)75
- 4FDUSD (First Digital USD)15 points below · weaker on who owes you the dollar (2 against 7)62
For your setup
Find out if USDC fits you
The rank above is the published one — the same for every visitor. Answer the category's questions and this section shows where USDC lands for you, which criteria your answers weight up, and which stated needs the record does or does not meet. The published rank stays beside it.
- A few questions
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- Ranking-blind: no commercial input
- Personalised in under 60 seconds
Find my best stablecoinNothing is inferred from clicks, popularity or commercial value.
Why this rank
Why USDC ranks #2
Each strength is read from evidence on a 0–10 ladder and weighted as the published methodology states. The 32 objective points these produce (19.6 here) sit inside the score; availability, friction, trust record and measured data add the rest. Best in this ranking on 2 of 4.
4 published criteria · Σ weight 100
CriterionWeightStrength · 0–10ScoreContrib.MedianBestRankEvidence
307+6.722.07#1/11Loading evidence…
285+4.483.08#2/11Loading evidence…
248+6.143.08#1/11Loading evidence…
184+2.305.07#8/11Loading evidence…
Hairline = best in this ranking · tick = its median · a missing bar is "not scored", never zero
Margin−2behind PayPal USD (PYUSD), #1
RobustnessOne point from changingacross a one-point change to each of its 4 criterion scores, the re-run scores 76–79 and ranks #1–#2
Evidence4 of 4 scored4 quoted, 4 with a source link
What would move the rank
Each line is the ranking run again with one of USDC’s criterion scores changed and every other value held: the smallest whole-point change on that criterion that moves its rank, and where the re-run puts it. Up to 4 climbs and 3 falls are listed, smallest change first. Nothing here is a forecast.
Who exactly owes you the dollar, and where do you rank when they fail? 7 → 8 on its ladder · passes PayPal USD (PYUSD)+179#2 → #1
Can the person actually holding it get a dollar back at par — and has anyone, at size? 5 → 6 on its ladder · passes PayPal USD (PYUSD)+179#2 → #1
What is really behind it, and what did the third party actually opine on? 8 → 10 on its ladder · passes PayPal USD (PYUSD)+279#2 → #1
Who can freeze, burn or replace your balance — and have they? 4 → 6 on its ladder · passes PayPal USD (PYUSD)+279#2 → #1
Who exactly owes you the dollar, and where do you rank when they fail? 7 → 5 on its ladder · Ripple USD (RLUSD) passes it−274#2 → #3
Can the person actually holding it get a dollar back at par — and has anyone, at size? 5 → 3 on its ladder · Ripple USD (RLUSD) passes it−274#2 → #3
What is really behind it, and what did the third party actually opine on? 8 → 6 on its ladder · Ripple USD (RLUSD) passes it−275#2 → #3
Smallest climb: “Who exactly owes you the dollar, and where do you rank when they fail?” 7 → 8 passes PayPal USD (PYUSD), #1.
Strengths
2 from the score dataWhere it leads
Best for readers who weight
- Who exactly owes you the dollar, and where do you rank when they fail? — 7/10, the category best
- What is really behind it, and what did the third party actually opine on? — 8/10, the category best
Tradeoffs
2 from the score dataWhere it trails
Not for readers who put first
- Can the person actually holding it get a dollar back at par — and has anyone, at size? — 5/10 against a category best of 8/10
- Who can freeze, burn or replace your balance — and have they? — 4/10 against a category best of 7/10
Record watch-outs
- The buyer will read "USDC is always redeemable 1:1 for US dollars, and EURC is always redeemable 1:1 for euros. Always." on circle.com/transparency, directly above a panel dated "As of Sep 24, 2026" (read 2026-09-29), and reasonably conclude the word applies to them. It does not. Circle’s own Form 10-Q filed 2026-08-05 states "the Company does not redeem Circle stablecoins from stablecoin holders who are not Circle Mint customers" outside the EU carve-out, and circle.com/circle-mint states "Circle Mint is not available to individuals". Outside the EEA a private holder has no redemption right at all — only an exit at whatever the secondary market pays, which is exactly what broke in March 2023. The second sting is one the first pass did not reach: even inside a Mint account, the binding agreement lets Circle suspend the account "as determined in our sole and absolute discretion" and then says that on closure or suspension you "forfeit all proprietary rights and claims against Circle in relation to any U.S. Dollar or euro funds otherwise eligible for redemption". The third: the protection most buyers assume the new OCC charter already delivers is not in place — the 10-K says Circle National Trust "will hold a first-priority perfected security interest in the USDC reserve as collateral trustee for the benefit of USDC holders" in the future tense, and circle.com/circle-national-trust still says it is only "expected to manage the USDC reserves" over time.
Competitive position
Where USDC leads and where it trails
Rank on every objective dimension among the rows scored on it. A criterion in the top third of its pool is listed as a lead, the bottom third as a trail; the middle is neither. Popularity, size and commercial terms are not dimensions.
Availability#1 / 1114.0 of 20 · constant here
Published criteria#2 / 1114.7 of 30 · best 15.3
Friction#1 / 112.7 of 10 · constant here
Trust record#1 / 113.2 of 8 · constant here
Measured data#1 / 118.3 of 18 · constant here
Where USDC leads
- Who exactly owes you the dollar, and where do you rank when they fail?#1 / 11
- Can the person actually holding it get a dollar back at par — and has anyone, at size?#2 / 11
- What is really behind it, and what did the third party actually opine on?#1 / 11
Where it trails
- Who can freeze, burn or replace your balance — and have they?#8 / 11
Closest alternatives
The 3 nearest rows by score
Nearest by published score in either direction. Each card states the criteria on which the two rows differ and the cost difference under the same scenario inputs; the compare arithmetic below shows why the higher one ranks higher.
PayPal USD (PYUSD)#1 of 11 · score 79 · 2.0 points ahead
USDC leads on
- What is really behind it, and what did the third party actually opine on?8 vs 4
PayPal USD (PYUSD) leads on
- Can the person actually holding it get a dollar back at par — and has anyone, at size?8 vs 5
- Who can freeze, burn or replace your balance — and have they?6 vs 4
Largest single reason PayPal USD (PYUSD) is ahead: published criteria (+1.6 display points).Scenario cost: USDC has no verified pricing for this scenario.
Ripple USD (RLUSD)#3 of 11 · score 75 · 2.0 points behind
USDC leads on
- Who exactly owes you the dollar, and where do you rank when they fail?7 vs 5
Ripple USD (RLUSD) leads on
- Who can freeze, burn or replace your balance — and have they?5 vs 4
Largest single reason USDC is ahead: published criteria (+2.6 display points).Scenario cost: Ripple USD (RLUSD) has no verified pricing for this scenario.
FDUSD (First Digital USD)#4 of 11 · score 62 · 15.0 points behind
USDC leads on
- Who exactly owes you the dollar, and where do you rank when they fail?7 vs 2
- Can the person actually holding it get a dollar back at par — and has anyone, at size?5 vs 3
- What is really behind it, and what did the third party actually opine on?8 vs 6
FDUSD (First Digital USD) leads onNo scored criterion
Largest single reason USDC is ahead: published criteria (+15.9 display points).Scenario cost: FDUSD (First Digital USD) has no verified pricing for this scenario.
Against the leader
79 vs 77 · gap 2.0Why PayPal USD (PYUSD) ranks above USDC
The compare workspace's arithmetic applied to these two rows. Each dimension's share of the gap is its weight × the difference, on the displayed scale — it reproduces the displayed gap of 2.0 to within rounding.
DimensionThisPayPal USD (PYUSD)Gap share
Availability · 23% weight · constant here14.014.0same
Published criteria · 35% weight14.715.3−1.6, worse
Friction · 12% weight · constant here2.72.7same
Trust record · 9% weight · constant here3.23.2same
Measured data · 21% weight · constant here8.38.3same
Published criterionThisPayPal USD (PYUSD)Points
Can the person actually holding it get a dollar back at par — and has anyone, at size? · w2858−2.69, worse
What is really behind it, and what did the third party actually opine on? · w2484+3.07, better
Who can freeze, burn or replace your balance — and have they? · w1846−1.15, worse
Net7779−2.0
Your scenario
USDC is not priced for this scenario
Conversion spread on your volume for a year. Excludes network gas and any withdrawal fee. Change an input and every figure recomputes from the published rate; the published rank does not move.
your cost/yr · default scenario — set your own
Your monthly volume · your input$1k
Rate read from the provider’s published pricing ↗ on 29 September 2026.
your cost/yrCost is stated as your cost/yr in USD; it is never a yield, never annualised, and it does not enter the score.
Not priced on this basis
Under the default inputs · USDCategory median and cheapestNot statedOnly 2 of 11 rows publish a comparable price; a median and a cheapest row need at least 3.
8 of 11 rows in this ranking have no verified rate for this scenario and are absent from the median, not counted as free.
1 of 11 quote a zero fee that leaves costs out, so they are absent from the median and the cheapest row, not counted as free.
Evidence
Evidence read 29 September 2026
One row per published criterion: the page each strength was read from, its source type by domain, the reading date and whether the file and the published table agree. Open a row for the quote and the receipt.
4 of 4 cells scored
Score evidenceVerified4 of 4 criteria reconstruct from receipts
4 of 4 criteria reconstruct from a quoted, sourced receipt equal to the published strength.Public receiptsReading…4 quoted with a source URL
The receipt file has not been read yet.Evidence confidenceHighcoverage and corroboration, never freshness
4/4 criteria scored, with 4 dated sources quoted.RobustnessOne point from changingrank #1 to #2 across one-point re-runs
Whether the position holds when one criterion score is changed by one point and the ranking is run again. It is always a re-run of the ranking, never an estimate.The newest evidence read on the platform is 3 November 2026; this category's reading is older. The scores stand as read on 29 September 2026.
Reading the evidence ledger…
CriterionSourceTypeReadFreshnessStatusReceipt
Who exactly owes you the dollar, and where do you rank when they fail?strength 7 · weight 30Report an error—29 September 2026*
Unknown
No reading date is recorded for this cell or its category.No receipt
A strength is published but no quote or source page is on file for it.Can the person actually holding it get a dollar back at par — and has anyone, at size?strength 5 · weight 28Report an error—29 September 2026*
Unknown
No reading date is recorded for this cell or its category.No receipt
A strength is published but no quote or source page is on file for it.What is really behind it, and what did the third party actually opine on?strength 8 · weight 24Report an error—29 September 2026*
Unknown
No reading date is recorded for this cell or its category.No receipt
A strength is published but no quote or source page is on file for it.Who can freeze, burn or replace your balance — and have they?strength 4 · weight 18Report an error—29 September 2026*
Unknown
No reading date is recorded for this cell or its category.No receipt
A strength is published but no quote or source page is on file for it.How you can lose money here, and what the ranking scores
- Control failure (USDC 4/10): a key or vote changes the rules, freezes or mints.Scored by Who can freeze, burn or replace your balance — and have they? · 18%
- Insolvency failure: the firm or issuer that owes you cannot pay.Scored by Who exactly owes you the dollar, and where do you rank when they fail? · 30% (USDC 7/10)Scored by What is really behind it, and what did the third party actually opine on? · 24% (USDC 8/10)
- Exit failure (USDC 5/10): you cannot get out at par, on time, or with what is yours.Scored by Can the person actually holding it get a dollar back at par — and has anyone, at size? · 28%
Not assessed by this ranking: Contract failure, Custody failure, Regulatory failure, Information failure. A high place says nothing about these; the Methodology tab says what each means.
Facts
facts, not scoresWhat the record publishes
- Pricing
- NO PUBLIC MINT OR REDEEM FEE SCHEDULE AND NO PUBLISHED MINIMUM on any Circle surface fetched 29 September 2026. The binding contract defers to a document the reader cannot open — Circle Mint User Agreement (https://
www .circle .com /legal /user-agreement, “Last Updated: September 28, 2026”) §10 Fees: “Circle may charge fees in connection with the Services. You agree to pay the fees shown to you, if any, or as separately agreed between you and Circle, when you enter into a transaction. Fees are generally disclosed on the Fee Schedule; we may change any of the fees that Circle charges at any time, with or without notice.” The linked Fee Schedule (help.circle.com/s/article/Circle-Account-fee-schedule) returned HTTP 200 with 79 characters of text (“Support Redirect - Support Loading...”) — no amounts, no minimums. circle.com/circle-mint (fetched 29 September 2026) is silent on fees and minimums and says “Circle Mint is the fastest and most cost effective way for distributors to access and redeem USDC, EURC, and cirBTC.” and, under the card “1:1 redemption”, “USDC, EURC, and cirBTC can be respectively redeemed 1:1 for US dollars, euros, and BTC through Circle.” (in August the same card read “can always be redeemed” — the word “always” is gone). circle.com/pricing now redirects to circle.com/contact/partner, a contact form, not a price list. The only fee language addressed to a retail holder is the EEA path, circle.com/legal/mica-redemption-policy (“Last Updated: September 15, 2026”), which charges nothing itself and disclaims only third-party costs: “Retail Holders are informed that third party fees may occur when payment in USD is performed on their bank account. Circle France is not liable for any such third party fees.” The legacy catalog’s six-figure Circle minimum remains unsupported: no minimum of any size appears in the USDC Terms, the Circle Mint User Agreement or circle.com/circle-mint as fetched 29 September 2026. No list price is published, so cost cannot be compared before a sales conversation.USDC — official pricing page ↗ · 29 September 2026 - Prices published in
- USDUSDC — official pricing page ↗ · 29 September 2026
- Licences held
- Not published
- Compliance level
- partial
- Regulatory note
- ENTITY (circle.com/legal/usdc-terms, re-loaded 19 August 2026): "USDC is a digital token issued by Circle Internet Financial, LLC (“Circle”) that operates on each of the blockchains listed here". Dual issuance is disclosed on the same page: "From July 1st 2024, Circle Internet Financial Europe SAS will become a second, or “dual issuer” of USDC."
- Supported chains
- Ethereum
- Markets served
- global
- Primary markets
- Not published
- Restricted markets
- Not published
- Operating limits
- Not published
- Availability note
- Not published
Legal entity on file: Circle, placed in 6 products. Only confirmed entities are shown; nothing is inferred from the brand name.
If something goes wrong with USDC: where to complain, and where to report a scam
Loading the routes for your country.
How this page is reviewed
Reviewed means this product in this category was read against its sources on or after that date; every ranked category is re-read at least every 45 days. Models research, extract and parse. A deterministic engine ranks. Every quote passes an adversarial refute pass.
Accountable for this review: Mathias Siemonsmeier, Founder.
How we review · Review calendar · Corrections log · How we make money
History
What the record carries
Changes to published ranks are recorded in a ledger; every step and its cause is listed on the rank-history page. The entries below begin with the current verified snapshot, then the methodology versions whose changes applied to this category, newest first.
10 methodology entries
- 29 September 2026Current verified snapshot · methodology 2026.10.18Score 77, #2 of 11. 4 of 4 criteria scored. History starts here; earlier values are not interpolated.
- 10 October 2026
2026.10.8When nothing serves your country, the list shown for reference is the published ranking · platform-wide- fixed The reference list shown when nothing serves your country is the published order with the published scores, and a build check now fails any such list out of that order or with a score the ranking does not publish.
- fixed The explorer prints an overall rank only for a row the published ranking holds; a country entrant such as Coinbase Commerce for US merchants shows no overall rank.
- changed Published orders do not move. Country results change only where nothing serves the country: in India bill pay keeps Bitcoin Well first and now shows Strike second, as published; 35 such runs across all categories and countries now match the published list exactly.
- 10 October 2026
2026.10.6A criterion you require re-scores the rows that meet it · platform-wide- changed The explorer sends each criterion you require, at any band, as fit_required with your other answers; region, licence, chain and fact filters stay filters. On /best, a required criterion joins For you as a marked preference does, which needs your country; Overall stays the published ranking, filtered.
- added Every published criterion has a golden case as the explorer sends it (require:<criterion>), so the order a requirement gives is replayed and gated as the published order is, and a change to it needs an entry here.
- 1 October 2026
2026.10.0Layer-2 chains are ranked on whether you can leave with your funds- added Four l2_chains criteria with published band ladders: proof system (18), withdrawals if the operator stops (18), rollup stage (14) and exit window before an upgrade (6). EVM equivalence moves 40 to 17, Ethereum data availability 25 to 15 and maturity 35 to 12. Every chain's emergency exit window reads None, so the exit-window ladder also reads L2BEAT's regular, non-emergency upgrade path (Arbitrum One 10 days, Starknet and Arbitrum Nova 7, zkSync Era 4 days 3 hours); data availability separates full transaction data (10) from state diffs only (9, L2BEAT: Onchain (SD)). A stage L2BEAT marks Under review keeps its last score for at most one 45-day cycle and is never interpolated.
- changed l2_chains ranks through scoreCriterionObjective on fitStrength, like the other criterion-ranked categories; the hand-written structural scorer is deleted. All 105 criterion scores across 15 rows carry a quote and source in research-pending/rereads/2026-10-01-l2_chains.json; 131 of 135 quotes re-fetched verbatim on the read date, and the four behind a bot wall or a JavaScript shell were read by the adversarial model run.
- fixed Four facts corrected on the read: Scroll, Mantle and Blast are EVM-compatible, not equivalent (their own documentation, and for Blast live RPC probes); Starknet's public mainnet opened to users in 2022, not 2021. Arbitrum Nova's data has gone to Ethereum as blobs since 31 August 2026, and the row now leads with the Arbitrum DAO's decision to minimise it.
- fixed The old scorer credited Ethereum data availability whenever the data-availability text contained the word "ethereum", so Arbitrum Nova's committee ("…Ethereum L1 rollup fallback") and Polygon zkEVM's off-chain data ("…Ethereum L1 before the sunset") both scored full marks. Data availability is now a quoted L2BEAT reading.
Methodology 2026.10.18, the same published run every visitor sees · receipt stablecoins:usdc:2026.10.18:1e2308e3f28a
Are you USDC? Reply to this verdict, or send evidence, ask for a correction or claim the listing. Every message gets a public ticket number; none of it changes a rank unless a public page or a signed statement supports it.
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Editorial review of USDC , on file since April 2026 — the review is separate from the score.