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Head-to-head · Stablecoins

USDC vs USDS (Sky) USDC leads by 22 points.

USDC scores 22 points above USDS (Sky), led by counterparty and insolvency rank, redemption right exercised, and reserve and assurance scope. USDC ranks #2 and USDS (Sky) #10 of 11 published stablecoins. Every term of the gap is on the ledger below; the inputs are on the audit receipt.

USDC77
USDS (Sky)55
Scores are out of 100; published scores fall within 41–99 · ranks #2 and #10 of 11
Methodology v2026.10.18Ranking snapshot Evidence verified through 4 published criteria5 score dimensions Receipt #cc-VS-USDC-VS-USDS-SKY-b21a1f8a
Published verdictRanking snapshot 3 November 2026

USDC leads by 22 points

USDC scores 22 points above USDS (Sky), led by counterparty and insolvency rank, redemption right exercised, and reserve and assurance scope.

USDC #2 of 1177
USDS (Sky) #10 of 1155
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 3 of 4 published criteria; USDS (Sky) on 1. The terms sum to the gap.
TermUSDCUSDS (Sky)WeightPoints
Counterparty and insolvency rank7/101/107.2+11.2for USDC+5.8 of 32
Redemption right exercised5/104/106.7+1.7for USDC+0.9 of 32
Reserve and assurance scope8/101/105.8+10.5for USDC+5.4 of 32
Seizure and upgrade authority4/105/104.3−1.1for USDS (Sky)−0.6 of 32
Net of the terms+22.3
Reproduced gap+22.4
Published gapAfter score rounding and bounds — see the note below7755+22.0

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

  • A row-above bound on one row means the criterion arithmetic does not reproduce the displayed gap exactly.
Quick facts

At a glance

2 of 3 rows read the same for both.
FactUSDCUSDS (Sky)
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.MINT/REDEEM FEES AND MINIMUMS ARE NOT IN ANY BINDING DOCUMENT. The Skybase International Terms of Use (https://docs.sky.money/legal/skybase-international/terms-of-use, "Version: 2.0 | Last Modified: 1 September 2026", fetched 29 September 2026) is the silent page: 0 occurrences of "redeem" or "redemption", and no fee schedule or minimum of any kind for acquiring or exiting USDS. The only published pricing sits in the protocol documentation and on-chain. Sky Protocol Docs, https://developers.sky.money/protocol/tokens/usds/ (redirects to developers.skyeco.com, fetched 29 September 2026), DAI USDS Converter: "Converts DAI to USDS at a fixed ratio of 1:1 and vice versa." / "No fees assessed." / "Fees cannot be enabled on this route in the future." Sky Protocol Docs, https://developers.sky.money/guides/psm/litepsm/ (fetched 29 September 2026): "The tin fee is assessed on all sellGem transactions, and the tout fee is assessed on all buyGem transactions. Both tin and tout values are set by Sky Ecosystem governance." and "All users, both public and authorized, can only swap up to the DAI and USDC balances held by LitePSM-DAI-USDC." CURRENT VALUES, all read at ONE Ethereum block, 26,082,220 (2026-09-29T09:26:59Z) via https://ethereum-rpc.publicnode.com: LitePSM-DAI-USDC 0xf6e72Db5454dd049d0788e411b06CfAF16853042 tin() = 0 and tout() = 0; LitePSMWrapper-USDS-USDC 0xA188EEC8F81263234dA3622A406892F3D630f98c tin() = 0 and tout() = 0. No minimum size is published or enforced on either route; the practical ceiling is module inventory — 4,133,680,653.128042 USDC in the Pocket 0x37305B1cD40574E4C5Ce33f8e8306Be057fD7341 at that block against a USDS totalSupply of 6,672,590,279.74 (label: on-chain reads, true only at the stamped block). Marketing counterpart on https://sky.money/ (fetched 29 September 2026), reworded since August: "Swap anytime. No fees, no slippage."
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 USDS (Sky)'s 1/10 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.

USDS (Sky)

55#10 of 11
Pick it when
Pick USDS (Sky) if seizure and upgrade authority matters most — it scores 5/10 to USDC's 4/10 there (weight 18).
Strength
Seizure and upgrade authority — 5/10
Tradeoff
That nobody is on the other side. Sky's binding Terms of Use (Version 2.0, last modified 1 September 2026) contain zero occurrences of the words "redeem" or "redemption", and the same document states that Skybase International "is not a subsidiary, agent, or representative of the Sky Protocol" and that neither it nor its affiliates are "party to any transaction on the Sky Protocol" — so there is no entity a holder can present USDS to for a dollar, and no insolvency rank to hold. The par exit everyone actually uses is a swap into USDC through a governance-owned module, and Sky's own protocol documentation says "Governance can set either tin or tout to the value of type(uint256).max , halting sellGem and buyGem transactions respectively on the LitePSM. Transactions would be halted for both public and authorized users." while sky.money's homepage advertises "Swap anytime. No fees, no slippage." Worse than the fee switch: the DAI leg's converter is genuinely immutable, but it mints through UsdsJoin, whose mint call is auth-gated on the token, so a single deny() from the pause proxy severs that route too. A buyer who read only the homepage would learn none of this.
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 1/10 for USDS (Sky) (weight 30)
  • Redemption right exercised: 5/10 against 4/10 for USDS (Sky) (weight 28)
  • Reserve and assurance scope: 8/10 against 1/10 for USDS (Sky) (weight 24)
USDS (Sky)

Choose USDS (Sky) if seizure and upgrade authority matters most

  • Seizure and upgrade authority: 5/10 against 4/10 for USDC (weight 18)
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 6 of 10weight 7.2 of 86USDC leads
USDC7 out of 10
USDS (Sky)1 out of 10

Redemption right exercised

by 1 of 10weight 6.7 of 86USDC leads
USDC5 out of 10
USDS (Sky)4 out of 10

Reserve and assurance scope

by 7 of 10weight 5.8 of 86USDC leads
USDC8 out of 10
USDS (Sky)1 out of 10

Seizure and upgrade authority

by 1 of 10weight 4.3 of 86USDS (Sky) leads
USDC4 out of 10
USDS (Sky)5 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
USDC14/20USDS (Sky)14/20
Tie
Published criteriaweight 30 of 86
USDC14.7/30USDS (Sky)6.1/30
USDC leads
Frictionweight 10 of 86 · constant here
USDC2.7/10USDS (Sky)2.7/10
Tie
Trust recordweight 8 of 86 · constant here
USDC3.2/8USDS (Sky)3.2/8
Tie
Measured dataweight 18 of 86 · constant here
USDC8.3/18USDS (Sky)8.3/18
Tie
Decision rulePublished order

Choose USDC unless the term USDS (Sky) leads on is the one you are buying.

Pick USDS (Sky) if seizure and upgrade authority matters most — it scores 5/10 to USDC's 4/10 there (weight 18).

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, USDS (Sky) 5/10)
  • 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, USDS (Sky) 1/10)
    Scored by What is really behind it, and what did the third party actually opine on? · 24% (USDC 8/10, USDS (Sky) 1/10)
  • 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, USDS (Sky) 4/10)
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 22 points above USDS (Sky), 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), USDS (Sky) 55 (rank 10 of 11).

Related pages

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Written and reviewed by Founder
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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