Circle, the issuer of dollar-based stablecoin USDC, was hammered when it was announced that the Fintech held $3.3 billion at Silicon Valley Bank (NASDAQ:SIVB). For a long minute, things looked a bit dire. That reversed when the federal government decided to back all deposits – including those above the $250,000 FDIC cap.
USDC holders first fled the stablecoin, which lost the dollar peg. Currently, USDC has regained its dollar peg.
In a blog post this week, Circle updated on its operational status. Circle stated:
Since the failures of Signature Bank and Silvergate Bank, our core transaction banking partners, our teams have been working around the clock to restore USDC liquidity operations, including bringing on new transaction banking partners. We began processing minting and redemption requests on Monday morning, March 13, when the U.S. banking system re-opened, and are currently working through the backlog. We have more to do here, including adding new transaction banking partners with 24/7/365 capability, and we will keep our community posted on our progress.
Yesterday, Circle provided another update reporting that since Monday, Circle has redeemed $3.8 billion USDC and minted $0.8 billion USDC.
The company added that it had also added a new transaction banking partner for domestic U.S. wires in and out and have “cleared substantially all of the backlog of minting and redemption requests.
Circle added that they hold the cash portion of reserves at BNY Mellon (and no longer SVB). The majority of the reserve is in the Circle Reserve Fund, managed by BlackRock and custodied at BNYM, which is mostly short dated U.S. Treasuries.