How to Buy USD Coin (USDC) – Beginner’s Guide
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USD Coin is the 2nd-largest stablecoin and a popular choice for crypto investors who want to store value on the blockchain in between investments. It maintains a value of $1 at all times, providing price stability in an otherwise volatile market.
Choosing a reliable USDC exchange is crucial for buying, selling, and securely storing your $USDC. In this guide, we’ll explain how to buy USD Coin ($USDC) and cover everything you need to know about this stablecoin.
How to Buy USDC in 4 Easy Steps
Let’s dive straight into the steps required to buy USD Coin.
Step 1: Create a Best Wallet account. Download Best Wallet for iOS or Android and create an account. Then verify your email and phone number.
Step 2: Select a purchase method. Tap ‘Buy’ on Best Wallet’s home screen to open a new order. Tap ‘Pay Using’ and select your preferred payment method, then enter your payment details.
Step 3: Search for $USDC. Tap on the crypto in the ‘You Get’ box and search for ‘USDC.’ Then enter the amount to purchase.
Step 4: Buy USD Coin. Tap ‘Buy USD Coin.’ Your $USDC tokens will be added to your wallet immediately.
USD Coin Key Features
- Launch and platform: Launched in September 2018. Available on 16 blockchains including Ethereum, Solana, Base, and Avalanche.
- Tokenomics: Backed 1:1 by US dollars and dollar-denominated assets.
- Valuation: $51.5 billion $USDC in circulation.
- Staking: Varies by USDC exchange. Up to 6.5% APY on Kraken.
- Key features: Stablecoin backed 1:1 by US dollars and available on all major smart contract blockchains.
- Long-term vision: Low-cost global payments in USDC, overtake Tether as the top stablecoin by market cap.
How to Buy USD Coin: Step-by-Step Instructions
Let’s walk through the steps for how to buy USD Coin in more detail.
1. Create a Best Wallet Account
We recommend using Best Wallet to buy USD Coin. Best Wallet is a free and highly secure Web3 crypto wallet with a built-in crypto onramp, making it easy to purchase $USDC with a credit or debit card.
To get started, download Best Wallet for iOS or Android from the Apple App Store or Google Play. Open the app and tap ‘Get Started.’
Create an account using your email and phone number. You’ll need to verify both. Then select a secure passkey. We also recommend enabling biometric authentication to make it easier to unlock your wallet.
The reason we recommend Best Wallet for new users and those looking for the most friction-free way to buy crypto is that by purchasing crypto from directly within a wallet, users lower their risk of exposing themselves to exchange hacks, third-party risks, and the possibility of sending to incorrect addresses when withdrawing from a traditional crypto exchange. The Best Wallet DEX aggregator sources the best rates for users’ swaps, supporting 50+ chains, connecting to over 200 decentralized exchanges, and using up to 20 cross-chain bridges. Users can make both same-chain and cross-chain swaps.
Visit Best Wallet2. Select Purchase Method
Navigate to the Best Wallet home screen and tap ‘Buy’ to open a new order form. Tap ‘Pay Using’ and then select a purchase method. Best Wallet supports credit and debit cards, Google Pay, Apple Pay, Neteller, and Skrill.
3. Search for USD Coin
Next, tap ‘You get’ and search for ‘USDC’ or ‘USD Coin.’ Tap on USD Coin when it appears in the search box.
Then enter the amount of USD Coin to purchase in US dollars. Remember that there are some transaction fees, so you’ll receive slightly less $USDC than the amount you pay in fiat.
4. Buy USD Coin
Review your transaction and tap ‘Buy USD Coin’ to complete your purchase.
Methods of Buying USD Coin Compared
Best Wallet isn’t the only way to buy USD Coin. You can also buy the stablecoin from a USDC exchange or a crypto broker. We’ve compared the different options in the table below to help you decide which is right for you.
| Purchase Method | Purchase Fees | Accepted Payment Methods | KYC Check Required | Time to Purchase | Complexity |
| Best Wallet | Varies, usually 1.5% | Credit/debit card, Apple Pay, Google Pay, Neteller, Skrill | No | 2 minutes | Low |
| MEXC (Crypto Exchange) | 2% (credit/debit card) | Credit/debit card, bank transfer, peer-to-peer | Yes | 5 minutes | Medium |
| eToro (Crypto Broker) | 1% | Credit/debit card, bank transfer, PayPal, Neteller, Skrill | Yes | 5 minutes | Low |
What is USD Coin?
USD Coin is a stablecoin issued by Circle. It is designed to track the value of the US dollar such that 1 $USDC is always equal to $1.00.
$USDC is backed 1:1 by US dollar reserves. This means that for every $USDC in circulation, Circle holds $1 in cash or dollar-denominated assets like treasury bills at a bank. At the time of writing, there are 51.50 billion $USDC in circulation and Circle has $46.5 billion in reserves.
When someone buys USD Coin using fiat from Circle, Circle issues new $USDC tokens on the blockchain. When someone sells USD Coin for fiat, Circle burns the sold $USDC tokens. This ensures that the supply of $USDC always perfectly matches demand and remains in line with Circle’s reserve of real dollars.
Because of its steady $1 price, USD Coin is frequently used as a store of value on the blockchain. Crypto investors can hold $USDC as a way to keep money on-chain without being exposed to the volatility of tokens like Bitcoin or Ethereum. Investors can also use $USDC to transfer value between blockchains since the token is cross-compatible with 16 different networks.
It’s important to note that $USDC can, on rare occasions, deviate from its $1 peg. For example, when Silicon Valley Bank collapsed, the value of $USDC briefly fell to $0.87 because the bank held a significant portion of Circle’s reserves. Events like this are unusual and $USDC returned to its standard $1 value within a few days.
Why Buy USD Coin and Is It Worth It?
USD Coin is not your typical crypto investment. It almost never gains or loses value, so it’s not really an investment at all.
Instead, the reason to buy $USDC is that it’s a gateway to value on the blockchain. Many exchanges require you to buy $USDC or another stablecoin, like $USDT, when converting fiat currency into cryptocurrency (known as fiat-to-crypto on-ramping). You can then swap your $USDC for any other cryptocurrencies you want to purchase.
In addition, many investors swap their altcoins back to $USDC when selling to realize a profit or loss. Altcoins must trade in pairs with another cryptocurrency, and many trade in pairs with $USDC or another stablecoin since their prices do not fluctuate. This means that you could end up holding $USDC as an intermediary coin in between other investments.
You can also buy $USDC as a way to store value on the blockchain without being subject to volatility in the crypto market. Keeping money on the blockchain in the form of $USDC enables you to be ready to invest quickly when an opportunity comes along. It also saves you from having to frequently onramp from fiat to crypto and back, which can result in a buildup of costly transaction fees.
In addition, while $USDC itself doesn’t gain or lose value, you can generate a return from your tokens through crypto staking or lending. Many USDC exchanges offer $USDC staking, with Kraken offering up to 6.5% APY at the time of writing. Crypto lending platforms offer potentially higher rates, albeit with more risk.
How to Store USD Coin That You Buy
You can store USD Coin that you purchase in almost any crypto wallet. We recommend using Best Wallet as the top USDC exchange because it’s free, highly secure, and offers tons of features to help you put your crypto to work. For example, you can stake your $USDC within Best Wallet to earn interest or invest your $USDC in new cryptocurrencies through the wallet’s Upcoming Tokens feature.
An important thing to note is that Best Wallet is what’s known as a self-custody crypto wallet. This type of wallet puts you in full control of your wallet keys—no one else has them, meaning no one else has access to your crypto.
However, if you lose your keys, there’s no way to restore access to your crypto. So, it’s extremely important to set up a key recovery process. In Best Wallet, you can do this simply by verifying your email and phone number. With other wallets, you may need to write down a seed phrase.
An alternative to storing your $USDC with a self-custody wallet like Best Wallet is to store it in a crypto exchange or crypto brokerage account. These accounts use a different type of wallet, known as a full custody wallet. In this case, your exchange or broker manages your wallet keys.
The upside to this approach is that it can be simpler and doesn’t require you to manage your own wallet. However, if your exchange or broker were to go out of business, they could take your cryptocurrency instead of returning it. There’s a common saying in crypto: ‘Not your keys, not your crypto.’
What to Do with USD Coin You Buy
There are several things you can do with your $USDC, including:
- Swap: You can swap $USDC for almost any crypto token. This is often the easiest way to buy a new altcoin.
- Hold: You can simply hold $USDC as a way to store value on the blockchain. This can be a good idea if you’re waiting for a good investment opportunity and want to be ready to move fast when it comes along.
- Stake: You can stake your $USDC to earn interest, similar to earning interest from a bank account. Some platforms require you to lock up your tokens for a set period of time in exchange for higher rates, while others offer flexible staking periods with lower APYs.
- Lend: You can lend out $USDC to earn a higher interest rate than is possible through staking. Just keep in mind that lending comes with a higher risk than staking.
Buy $USDC Verdict – A Promising Investment?
Although USD Coin isn’t a crypto investment in the traditional sense, it can still be worth buying for many investors. $USDC can help you move value onto the blockchain and keep it there without the risk of volatility. When you’re ready to buy some, it’s easy to swap $USDC for another token. You can also earn interest from your $USDC through staking or lending.
So depending on which way you look at it, buying USDC can be seen as an investment, or the first step towards beginning your crypto investing journey.
Buying USD Coin is easy. Download Best Wallet to get your $USDC today.
Visit Best WalletFAQs
What exchanges is USD Coin listed on?
Is $USDC better than $USDT?
Is $USDC ever worth less than $1?
How do I stake $USDC?
Can I sell $USDC for cash?
References
- USDC reserves composition (Circle)
- Stablecoin USDC breaks dollar peg after firm reveals it has $3.3 billion in SVB exposure (CNBC)
- What Happens When An Exchange Goes Bankrupt? (The Bitcoin Manual)
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