You can now buy and sell USD coin on South African cryptocurrency exchange OVEX, which offers both a ZAR (rand) onramp and offramp for this popular US dollar stablecoin.

Because USDC is tethered 1:1 to the US dollar, it has proven popular among South African crypto arbitrageurs.

According to head of trading at OVEX Tom Masojada, a substantial number of clients trading volume through the OVEX OTC Desk are changing hands with USDC to profit off the crypto arbitrage premium:

OVEX clients can now sell USDC directly for rands at the same local premium that bitcoin trades at — with tight spreads and zero fees. We specialise in best pricing on high volume trades.

This is a game changer. Pre-OVEX, this process proved costly and time-consuming. One would buy USDC with dollars. This USDC was then sent to an offshore crypto exchange and used to buy bitcoin. This bitcoin was then sent to a local exchange, like Luno, and sold for rands at a profit. Add volume to the mix and executing a trade of this nature becomes even more precarious.

With OVEX you can sell USDC, at volume, directly for rands through its OTC Desk.

Once reserved for OTC clients only, USDC is now available to all OVEX exchange users. Now you can leverage the power of OVEX’s deep liquidity at the simple click of a button.

Click here to buy and sell USD coin on OVEX today.

What is USD coin?

USDC is one of the world’s fastest growing, regulated dollar-digital stablecoins – issued by payments behemoth Circle. At the time of writing, there are 29.4 billion fully collateralised USDC in circulation. Hundreds of companies support the USDC standard, including digital wallets, exchanges, DeFi (decentralised finance) protocols, savings, lending and payment services.

What are the use cases for stablecoins like USDC?

Stablecoins allow investors to generate yield on their crypto assets in the DeFi space while simultaneously alleviating the adverse effects of market volatility. This is precisely why OVEX offers Crypto Interest Accounts where you can safely store your USDC and generate an impressive 9% annualised yield. This approach is popular for investors looking for superior yield than that offered in traditional fixed-interest investments (such as savings accounts, money market funds or bonds). Many seasoned cryptocurrency investors “park” their cryptocurrency profits in high-yielding, low-risk USD stablecoin protocols of this nature.

Click here to open up a Crypto Interest Account at OVEX and start earning a passive income today.

USDC is a highly functional DeFi token as it is natively supported on a plethora of layer-1 blockchains, including Ethereum as an ERC-20 token, Algorand as an ASA token, Solana as a SPL token, Tron as an TRC-20 token and Stellar as a native asset.

Digital dollars are faster, more secure and easier to send around the world than traditional fiat currencies. This is what makes them attractive as a means of payment when compared to their fiat counterparts: borderless, irreversible payments that settle in minutes, are which are practically free and incredibly secure. A superior payment method for international commerce!

Wealth managers have turned to USDC as a hedge against rand volatility, especially in the wake of Chinese property developer, Evergrande’s debt crisis. Last week, MSCI’s index of emerging market currencies fell 1.44% to hit a three-week low, with the rand’s 1.52% drop to R14.79 leading the pack. The spillover effect this crisis will have in emerging markets, like South Africa, have investors concerned about future rand stability.

Click here to buy and sell USD coin with your South African rands.