What is the USDC?
USD Coin (USDC) is a type of cryptocurrency called “stablecoin”. Each USDC represents a crypto version of one US dollar.
USDC is pegged to the US dollar. The goal of the USDC is to remain stable (where one USDC is approximately equal to one US dollar) hence the name "stablecoin".
Each USDC is backed by one US dollar in reserve. The Center consortium is responsible for having those reserves audited by independent audit firms.
Why use a stablecoin like USDC?
You can think of the USDC as a "crypto cash account".
Instead of going back and forth between Spot and your bank account, you can now sell any crypto for USDC when you want to lock in some value in crypto dollar.*
Here are some use cases for using the USDC:
realize some gains made on a crypto (for example bitcoin) by selling it for USDC
quickly reduce your exposition to a crypto by selling it for USDC
make a deposit in Spot in order to buy other crypto faster & with less fees
Ressources
*Note that USDC can fluctuate in price and that Spot cannot guarantee the price of one USDC to always be equal to one US dollar.