Bridging the information gap with USDC

USDC remains one of the most popular stablecoins across the crypto ecosystem. However, its market cap has decreased recently, while other stablecoins have enjoyed an increase to their share of the market.

Why did this happen? Did UST’s 20% APY steal users from USDC? Have people gotten more comfortable with Tether? Is USDC no longer the preferred coin used to peg algorithmic stablecoins? And what about liquidity - is it simply locked in dollar-stability pools? How much USDC has been unofficially bridged to other chains, and what’s it being used for there? Are those bridges fully backed 1-for-1 with USDC?

More importantly: why is it so hard to answer these questions?

We built usdc.cool to increase the transparency around the coin. For all the monthly attestations and public comments, there was no simple, concise way to monitor the USDC supply across chains.

And now we have more questions that need answers.

So we’re going to answer them. We plan on evolving usdc.cool into the de facto analytics platform for USDC. One visit will show you everything you need to know about USDC — where it is, who’s using it, why is it moving — all without overwhelming you with unnecessary data.

Today, we’re pleased to take the first step towards that goal.

Starting today, you can elect to see the USDC that has been bridged from Ethereum to other blockchains.

This gives a much clearer picture of the true market reach of USDC, and where it is being used the most. This data is already pretty compelling — who knew Polygon accounted for nearly 3% of all USDC? And over time, it will tell a story of chain popularity and can be used to influence every day decisions.

So what is bridging anyway? When a blockchain wants to have USDC in their system, they can do one of two things: The first option is to wait for Centre and Circle to start officially supporting their chain. But, considering USDC is only officially supported on 8 chains, this could be a long wait.

Alternatively, developers could “bridge” USDC to their chain. Bridging USDC is when a service accepts USDC on one officially supported chain (often Ethereum), and mints their own token on another chain, one-for-one. The new token is not official USDC, but it can be used as 1 USDC across this new blockchain, and can be swapped back to Ethereum for 1 USDC at any time.

And developers of these chains have done quite a bit of bridging, as you will see on usdc.cool.

These numbers don’t tell the whole story, and there is still plenty of bridging data we plan on offering. Currently, we’re showing where Ethereum-based USDC ends up. But bridged USDC can come from all over the place. Over time, we plan on painting a fuller picture, and exposing any discrepancies.

We hope you like what you see. There’s a lot more to learn, and we’ll be back to share again soon.