After the recent inclusion of another stablecoin, London-based exchange platform, CEX.io will are now set to expand their listings to include another, USDC. Stablecoins are somewhat of a buzz-word of 2019, with there being countless examples of new ones popping up from various parts of the crypto community, and with the launch of Project Libra next year it seems that trend will be on-going. The platform CEX.io seem to be more than aware of this as they are setting their sights on including more of these types of coins. Last month, saw them include the first of such coins, Tether (USDT), considered the most well-known stablecoin in the business, as well as being the top-ranked on Coinmarketcap. They have now quickly followed up on this with the listing of another well-established stablecoin option, USDC. [cta text='Visit CEX' href='/out/cex'] What is USDC? Designed by the CENTRE Consortium, a partnership of two established crypto companies, payments firm, Circle and exchange platform, Coinbase, the concept of USDC follows the same primary goal of USDT. As such, much like its more established stablecoin counterpart, USDC is backed at a ratio of 1:1 with the USD which provides the coin's stability. The two firms mint the tokens and provide the dollar that ensures that the asset stays stable, much like how Tether does for their token. USDC itself is an ERC-20 token, which removes the need for a bank account in a certain country to trade values of the same amount as the USD worldwide and for a low price. With the promise to combined the “flexibility of crypto and the stability of the US dollar”. If you are familiar with the USDT business-model then all this will sound very familiar, which raises the question, why would you invest in this new offering over the more-established and better-known USDT? The first thing to consider regarding this is that while Tether can use various blockchain protocols, such as Bitcoin, Tron or Ethereum, USDC is limited to just the latter of these three. This doesn’t bode well for its advantages over USDT, but an important benefit is that USDC is offered to US residents. While if you were to use USDT, issuance and redemption services would not be available to you as an individual or institution in the US. These are essentially the only difference between the two. Both of which provide the same perks though. For example, lower volatility compared to other crypto assets, while benefiting from lower fees and faster transactions when compared to fiat options. This brings the protocols and availability as the only prominent difference between the two. As well as of course, the firms that are supporting the tokens, with Tether remaining as the better-known firm for stablecoins, although they have had a very controversial 2019, which included the accidental creation of a larger number of unpegged tokens. Investing in USDC at CEX If you are interested in investing in USDC and diversifying your crypto and stablecoins portfolio, then you can do so at CEX.io via the USDC/USD trading pair. Deposits of the stablecoin are already available, but exact details of timings for full trading have not been announced, although it is unlikely you will have to wait long, with it likely to be in place within the next 24 hours. What the platform has said is “USDC will come in handy for traders who practice arbitrage and want to have extra mobility in transferring funds between exchanges” This is the listing in a week at CEX with the platform also listing Cardano (ADA) last Thursday.