Knowledge · Terms · USDC

USDC

Indicator abbreviation
USD Coin
US-dollar-pegged stablecoin issued by Circle. Settlement currency of all Hyperliquid perpetuals.

What USDC is

USD Coin is an ERC-20 (and multi-chain) stablecoin issued by Circle. 1 USDC = 1 USD, backed by bank deposits and short-dated US Treasuries, attested monthly by an independent accounting firm.

Not to be confused with: - USDT (Tether) — the largest stablecoin, but with never-ending transparency debates. - DAI (MakerDAO) — decentrally collateralized, not centrally issued. - USDe (Ethena) — algorithmically structured, not fiat-backed.

Role in Hyperliquid

All Hyperliquid perpetuals settle in USDC. That means:

  • Margin is posted in USDC.
  • PnL is paid out/deducted in USDC.
  • Funding payments flow in USDC.

USDC is bridged onto Hyperliquid (e.g. via the Arbitrum bridge) and transferred internally between Spot and Perp — see infra/transfer.py for Botty's helper.

Important for Botty

  • config.py references wallet balances in USDC.
  • MAX_POSITION_USD is effectively MAX_POSITION_USDC.
  • Account equity queries via infra/hyperliquid.py return USDC values.

Peg risks

In March 2023, USDC briefly depegged to ~0.88 USD, triggered by the Silicon Valley Bank collapse (Circle held reserves there). Within 48h the peg was back at 1.0, but the event shows: stablecoin risk is not zero. For an algo-trading bot this is mostly theoretical — a depeg would leave all position PnLs unchanged in USDC terms, but would produce losses when converting back to fiat.