Last updated on February 28th, 2022
If you own some USDC, you may be thinking of trying to purchase some UST with it to send it to the Anchor Protocol.
However, there are not many platforms that have a direct USDC/UST trading pair!
Here’s a guide to help you get started:
Contents
How to convert or swap from USDC to UST
Here are 2 main ways that you can convert or swap from USDC to UST:
- KuCoin
- Convert USDC to USDT, and trade using the USDT/UST trading pair
Here is each method explained:
KuCoin
Here’s what you need to do to buy UST from USDC on KuCoin:
- Send USDC to the KuCoin Main Account
- Transfer USDC to the Trading Account
- Find the USDC/UST trading pair on KuCoin
- Select the price and quantity to buy UST
#1 Send USDC to the KuCoin Main Account
You’ll need to deposit USDC into KuCoin by going to ‘Deposit‘.

You can use the dropdown menu to select USDC.

There are quite a few ways that you can send USDC to KuCoin. It would be best to use either the Algorand or TRC20 networks, instead of the ERC20 network.
This is because sending USDC via the ERC20 network will result in very high withdrawal fees!
#2 Transfer your crypto to the Trading Account
When you deposit your USDC into your KuCoin account, it will be transferred to your Main Account.

If you wish to trade your USDC to UST, you will need to transfer USDC to your Trading Account.

#3 Find the USDC/UST trading pair
After you’ve transferred your crypto to your Trading Account, you can go to KuCoin’s Spot Exchange.

This will bring you to KuCoin’s trading platform.

If you want to buy UST from USDC, you’ll need to search for ‘USDC‘ and select the USDC/UST trading pair.

If you search for UST by itself, the USDC/UST trading pair doesn’t show up on the search result!
#4 Select the price and quantity to buy UST
After selecting the USDC/UST trading pair, you can proceed to make the order.
KuCoin allows you to make 4 different orders:
- Limit
- Market
- Stop Limit
- Stop Market
However, you’ll need to go to the ‘Sell USDC‘ tab. This is because you’re selling USDC to buy UST.

Although it’s supposed to be a 1:1 switch between USDC and UST, the exchange rate on the market is less than 1.

As such, you may lose some of your UST to this difference in the rate.
Verdict
KuCoin charges up to 0.1% if you trade on their platform.
If you intend to withdraw UST via the ERC20 network, there may be times where this function will be unavailable.

However, if you are intending to transfer your UST to Terra Station, you should be using the Terra network instead.

Convert USDC to USDT, and trade using the USDT/UST trading pair
KuCoin is one of the few platforms that have the USDC/UST trading pair. If you have USDC on other platforms apart from KuCoin, you may not be able to convert your USDC directly to UST.
Instead, you will need to find a platform that has these 2 trading pairs:
- USDC/USDT
- USDT/UST
This means that you’ll need to make 2 trades: buy USDT from USDC, and then buy UST from USDT.
This is because USDT is more versatile since it has many more trading pairs compared to USDC.
There are 2 platforms that have both of these pairs:
In the case of Huobi, you will need to first trade using the USDC/USDT pair,

and then trade using the USDT/UST pair.

You can view my guide on converting from USDT to UST to find out more.
Conclusion
If you are looking to convert USDC directly to UST, the main option that you have is KuCoin.
Otherwise, you will need to convert USDC to USDT first, before trading it for UST on Huobi or Bittrex.

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