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Head-to-head · Stablecoins

USDC vs frxUSD (Frax USD) USDC leads by 21 points.

USDC scores 21 points above frxUSD (Frax USD), led by counterparty and insolvency rank, redemption right exercised, and reserve and assurance scope. USDC ranks #2 and frxUSD (Frax USD) #7 of 11 published stablecoins. Every term of the gap is on the ledger below; the inputs are on the audit receipt.

USDC77
frxUSD (Frax USD)56
Scores are out of 100; published scores fall within 41–99 · ranks #2 and #7 of 11
Methodology v2026.10.18Ranking snapshot Evidence verified through 4 published criteria5 score dimensions Receipt #cc-VS-USDC-VS-FRXUSD-FRAX-USD-37a22dc6
Published verdictRanking snapshot 3 November 2026

USDC leads by 21 points

USDC scores 21 points above frxUSD (Frax USD), led by counterparty and insolvency rank, redemption right exercised, and reserve and assurance scope.

USDC #2 of 1177
frxUSD (Frax USD) #7 of 1156
Scores are out of 100; published scores fall within 41–99; a bar is empty at 41 and full at 99.
Why, term by termUSDC leads on 4 of 4 published criteria; frxUSD (Frax USD) on 0. The terms sum to the gap.
TermUSDCfrxUSD (Frax USD)WeightPoints
Counterparty and insolvency rank7/102/107.2+9.4for USDC+4.8 of 32
Redemption right exercised5/103/106.7+3.5for USDC+1.8 of 32
Reserve and assurance scope8/103/105.8+7.5for USDC+3.8 of 32
Seizure and upgrade authority4/103/104.3+1.1for USDC+0.6 of 32
Net of the terms+21.5
Criteria roundingThe criteria block is rounded to whole points before it is spread−0.1
Reproduced gap+21.3
Published gapAfter score rounding and bounds — see the note below7756+21.0

Weight is in points of the 86-point weighted total. Points are score points of the gap between the two.

Quick facts

At a glance

2 of 3 rows read the same for both.
FactUSDCfrxUSD (Frax USD)
PricingSnapshotNO 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.NO BINDING DOCUMENT PRICES MINT OR REDEMPTION. The FraxNet Terms of Service, https://net.frax.com/terms (fetched 29 September 2026; the page's "Last updated" line renders the fetch date, and the extracted text is the same 16,771 characters as in August), contain 0 occurrences of "redeem", "redemption", "minimum" and "frxUSD", and no fee table of any kind. PUBLISHED FEES — Frax documentation, https://docs.frax.com/frxusd/fiat-onramp-offramp (fetched 29 September 2026), whose "Fees" section lists exactly two items: Exchange Fee, "May be applied by Bridge.xyz during currency conversion"; RWA Liquidation Fee, "A 1 BPS conversion fee may apply if real-world assets (RWAs) are being liquidated to meet cash redemptions". Both are conditional and the exchange leg is unquantified. The same page gates the fiat route: "All users must complete Persona KYC/KYB and Bridge.xyz verification", and the only supported account types are "U.S. checking accounts" and "U.S. savings accounts". ON-CHAIN FEES AND CAPACITY (label: eth_call reads at Ethereum blocks 26,082,253-26,082,262, not page prices): the permissionless USDC route 0x4F95C5bA0C7c69FB2f9340E190cCeE890B3bd87c still returns mintFee() = 0 and redeemFee() = 0, but holds 0 USDC (totalAssets() = 0; it held 1,385,323.315876 USDC on 19 August 2026), so it cannot pay out today; the RWA routes USTB 0x5fbAa3A3B489199338fbD85F7E3D444dc0504F33, BUIDL 0xe827abf9f462ac4f147753d86bc5f91e186e4e9c and WTGXX 0x860Cc723935FC9A15fF8b1A94237a711DFeF7857 return mintFee() = 0 and redeemFee() = 1e14, i.e. 1 basis point, and require addresses "onboarded to hold BUIDL, USTB, or WTGXX" (https://docs.frax.com/frxusd/mint-and-redeem-routes); the USDB route 0xFE2Ea8dE262d956e852F12DE108fda57171a0a29 is fee-free and holds 1.538966 USDB; an AUSD route 0x537bed9200fc5a14ab56e554016753676eff12b0, added as a minter at block 25,832,426 and not listed on the routes page, charges a 1e14 (1 basis point) redeemFee and holds 35,696.844801 AUSD. frxUSD totalSupply() = 93,369,845.27. NOT A PRICE: https://docs.frax.com/frxusd still advertises "Earn 4.1% APY from Treasury yields (subject to treasury backing performance)" — the sfrxUSD/FraxNet savings product, which this page does not score.
Asset coverageEditorial——
Region fitSnapshotglobalglobal
From the published criteria

Which should you pick?

USDC

77#2 of 11
Leads
Pick it when
Pick USDC if counterparty and insolvency rank matters most — it scores 7/10 to frxUSD (Frax USD)'s 2/10 there (weight 30).
Strength
Reserve and assurance scope — 8/10
Tradeoff
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.

frxUSD (Frax USD)

56#7 of 11
Pick it when
frxUSD (Frax USD) leads USDC on no published criterion and no score dimension — pick it only if a fact outside the score (country, funding rail, custody) decides for you.
Strength
Redemption right exercised — 3/10
Tradeoff
This record scores frxUSD; the legacy pair does not belong in it. Every legacy-token read reproduces at pinned block 25,790,057 on 2026-08-19: legacy FRAX 0x853d955aCEf822Db058eb8505911ED77F175b99e returns name() = 'Frax', symbol() = 'FRAX', totalSupply() = 219,320,045.8726, more than twice frxUSD's 99,546,198.812956; legacy sFRAX 0xA663B02CF0a4b149d2aD41910CB81e23e1c41c32 returns 'Staked FRAX' / 'sFRAX' at 56,157,367.8378; sfrxUSD 0xcf62F905562626CfcDD2261162a51fd02Fc9c5b6 returns 'Staked Frax USD' / 'sfrxUSD' at 30,289,675.5744; and FXS 0x3432B6A60D23Ca0dFCa7761B7ab56459D9C964D0 still returns 'Frax Share' / 'FXS'. FIP-428 renames the governance token: gov.frax.finance topic 3652, "[FIP - 428] Frax North Star Proposal - V2" (2025-03-09), states "FXS will be renamed to FRAX" and "'Legacy' FRAX (the original stablecoin) will be renamed to Legacy Frax Dollar". On the read date the string "FRAX" could therefore mean a legacy stablecoin, a governance token mid-rename, or the retired brand of frxUSD. FIP-430 proposes, and nothing records as done, "(1) establishing two distinct balance sheets—one for Legacy FRAX Dollar and one for frxUSD"; neither FIP carries an execution receipt. It also says "the Frax Finance DAO will no longer guarantee 1-to-1 migration between Legacy FRAX Dollar and frxUSD" and leaves Legacy FRAX to "continue to operate under its AMO-driven, DeFi-native model". net.frax.com says frxUSD "can always be redeemed 1:1 for US dollars", while the Terms of Service on the same domain contain the word "redeem" zero times and still describe "a fractional-algorithmic stablecoin". And on 2026-09-29 the permissionless USDC route held 0 USDC and the fee-free USDB route 1.538966 USDB, so the documented permissionless par exit could not pay out, while the undisclosed live mint authority is still there.
Self-identify in 10 seconds

Which one is actually for you?

USDCLeads

Choose USDC if counterparty and insolvency rank matters most

  • Counterparty and insolvency rank: 7/10 against 2/10 for frxUSD (Frax USD) (weight 30)
  • Redemption right exercised: 5/10 against 3/10 for frxUSD (Frax USD) (weight 28)
  • Reserve and assurance scope: 8/10 against 3/10 for frxUSD (Frax USD) (weight 24)
frxUSD (Frax USD)

frxUSD (Frax USD) leads USDC on no published criterion

  • Choose it only if something outside the published criteria decides for you — your country, a funding rail, or custody.
Criterion by criterion

Scorecard

Published criteria · weight in points of 868 of 8 cells scored. Strength is read from the evidence file; the weight is the published one. Methodology

Counterparty and insolvency rank

by 5 of 10weight 7.2 of 86USDC leads
USDC7 out of 10
frxUSD (Frax USD)2 out of 10

Redemption right exercised

by 2 of 10weight 6.7 of 86USDC leads
USDC5 out of 10
frxUSD (Frax USD)3 out of 10

Reserve and assurance scope

by 5 of 10weight 5.8 of 86USDC leads
USDC8 out of 10
frxUSD (Frax USD)3 out of 10

Seizure and upgrade authority

by 1 of 10weight 4.3 of 86USDC leads
USDC4 out of 10
frxUSD (Frax USD)3 out of 10

Score dimensions

weights sum to 86

The published score is five dimensions, each weighted for the category. "Published criteria" is the criteria block above; the other four are the engine's own terms — availability, friction, trust record, measured data. Each bar is one side's points out of that dimension's maximum; the weight beside the name is its points of the 86-point weighted total. The published criteria above can fill 24 of the block’s 30. A weight marked “constant here” belongs to a dimension every ranked product in the category holds at the same value: it still counts in the total, and it orders nothing here.

Availabilityweight 20 of 86 · constant here
USDC14/20frxUSD (Frax USD)14/20
Tie
Published criteriaweight 30 of 86
USDC14.7/30frxUSD (Frax USD)6.5/30
USDC leads
Frictionweight 10 of 86 · constant here
USDC2.7/10frxUSD (Frax USD)2.7/10
Tie
Trust recordweight 8 of 86 · constant here
USDC3.2/8frxUSD (Frax USD)3.2/8
Tie
Measured dataweight 18 of 86 · constant here
USDC8.3/18frxUSD (Frax USD)8.3/18
Tie
Decision rulePublished order

Choose USDC unless the term frxUSD (Frax USD) leads on is the one you are buying.

frxUSD (Frax USD) leads USDC on no published criterion and no score dimension — pick it only if a fact outside the score (country, funding rail, custody) decides for you.

The published order weighs every criterion the same way for everyone. To weigh them your way, run .

From the published order

Next best action

If this isn't your case

Other matchups worth comparing

How you can lose money here, and what the ranking scores
  • Control failure: a key or vote changes the rules, freezes or mints.
    Scored by Who can freeze, burn or replace your balance — and have they? · 18% (USDC 4/10, frxUSD (Frax USD) 3/10)
  • 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, frxUSD (Frax USD) 2/10)
    Scored by What is really behind it, and what did the third party actually opine on? · 24% (USDC 8/10, frxUSD (Frax USD) 3/10)
  • Exit failure: 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% (USDC 5/10, frxUSD (Frax USD) 3/10)
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.
Questions

Frequently asked questions

USDC scores 21 points above frxUSD (Frax USD), led by counterparty and insolvency rank, redemption right exercised, and reserve and assurance scope. Published scores, out of 100: USDC 77 (rank 2 of 11 stablecoins), frxUSD (Frax USD) 56 (rank 7 of 11).

Related pages

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Reviewed Next review by Methodology v2026.10.18
How this page is reviewed

Reviewed means both products compared here 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.

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