Stablecoin issuer Circle said it has cleared “substantially all” of the backlog of minting and redemption requests for USDC.
In a March 15 blog post, Circle disclosed that it redeemed $3.8 billion USDC and minted $800 million USDC since Monday.
“The events of the past week have impacted the liquidity operations for USDC. Circle has worked tirelessly to re-initiate services with alternative banking partners, particularly payment and USDC redemption services,” said Circle.
USDC briefly depegged from the U.S. dollar over the weekend after Circle disclosed it had $3.3 billion worth of its reserves held at the now-collapsed Silicon Valley Bank (SVB).
Although most of the chaos around the event had been addressed by Sunday evening, when regulators announced they would make all SVB depositors whole, Circle was dealt another blow when they announced the shutdown of one of its major banking partners Signature Bank.
Circle had previously used Signature’s digital asset payment network SigNet to process USDC minting and redemptions. With the option no longer available, Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire said the firm would be relying on BNY Mellon for these settlements. In an update shortly after, Allaire revealed that Circle had formed a new partnership with Cross River Bank to enable automated settlements.
In Wednesday’s announcement, Circle said it had signed on a new transaction banking partner for domestic wires in the U.S., without naming the firm in question. Additionally, that same partner will provide international wires between 19 other countries, Circle said.
“We also went live today with an existing transaction banking partner for international wires. We expect to bring more capabilities back on line tomorrow,” added Circle.
Some market participants issued a nod of approval for Circle’s swift response in handling the high volume of redemptions, saying that USDC had successfully passed a stress test.
