Circle

A few weeks ago, I learned about Circle.com and its app. It offers free payments among friends and even free overseas payments. There is also a $5 bonus for signing up through a referral. So, I signed up but initially didn't use it much except for a small sum I transferred to a friend. Little did I know that a little money would alarm Circle. It began to ask me for my ID and a selfie. I provided that but then got a message that after a "careful" review my account got closed. And indeed, when I logged into my account, I could only see my profile pic, a message that my account is closed and worse, I didn't know what happened to my payment. I asked my friend if she got it. She didn't. I checked with my bank and see it's no more pending. So, Circle closed my account and kept my money. Fortunately, I got my money back but not after a week long struggle. Really, that company is a Circle of scammers you better stay away from.

PS: My friend's account got closed too but she says after

I think the greatest knock against USDC is that it's not decentralized at all. That said, Circle and Jeremy Allaire, that run USDC does an excellent job making it useful and for my money the most reliable, trustworthy and transparent stablecoin. If I want to move money around in an asset that doesn't fluctuate in value, I always go to USDC first. Hopefully the US government doesn't impose any overly onerous regulations (I'd be fine with simple transparency and reserve requirements--btw stablecoins like USDC that are pegged to the US dollar actually help reinforce the supremacy of the US dollar) on the stablecoin industry because they really are incredibly useful in all parts of the defi/crypto universe. One day, some version of an entirely decentralized stablecoin (like Dai but probably not Dai in its current form) may replace USDC but until then I'm pretty happy with my USDC.