The four tests
We evaluate four properties of a project. A coin is eligible for inclusion when it satisfies both Test 1 and Test 4 and at least one of Tests 2 or 3.
Test 1
Headquarters in the United States
The primary operating company has a physical headquarters located in a US state or territory. Remote-first companies are acceptable provided the executive team and majority of full-time employees reside in the US.
Test 2
Founding team is American
A majority of named founders are US citizens or US residents at the time of founding, and those US founders hold substantive operational roles today — chief executive, technical leadership, or core engineering. Advisory and board-only titles do not count toward the majority. A founder whose US status cannot be established from a source is not counted as American.
Test 3
Primary operations occur in the United States
At least one of the following is US-based: a majority of full-time engineers; the legal entity responsible for project governance; or the team conducting regulatory engagement with US authorities. For protocols stewarded by foundations, the foundation's principal contributors must be US-based.
Test 4
Legal entity is registered under US jurisdiction
The operating entity (corporation, LLC, foundation, or 501(c)(3)) is registered in a US state. Offshore wrappers are disqualifying unless paired with a US operating company that is the project's principal contributor.
Verdicts are computed, not asserted
Editors record facts — every material legal entity with its jurisdiction and role, founders and their current roles, and US operations — each tied to dated evidence. The four tests and the inclusion ruling are then computed by the registry from those facts. An editor cannot mark a test as passed; a listing whose own evidence does not satisfy the tests cannot be published.
Every entity is recorded, including offshore foundations and token issuers. A project with a non-US foundation or token issuer can only be listed through the foundation carve-out, and only when the US principal contributor is itself evidenced. Wrapped assets are assessed on their custodian; stablecoins and tokenized assets on their issuer.
Evidence standard
Evidence is graded by where the document lives, and the grade is enforced:
- Official — corporate and charity registries, regulators, court records, and statutory filings, cited from their official hosts.
- Legal terms — a project's own legally operative documents (terms of service, privacy notices) naming the contracting entity, its state, and its address.
- Project, press, and reference — the project's other pages, independent journalism, and data aggregators.
A test passes in one of two ways. Primary documents — official or legal-terms evidence — verify it outright. Corroboration — at least two independent sources (all of a project's own pages count as one) stating the same fact, with no credible source contradicting it — is enough to list a coin. The USCC Verified seal is reserved for coins whose required tests rest on primary documents. Reference sites never count toward either, and a mailbox is not a headquarters. Search result pages and dead links are not evidence.
Listing status and verification
- Listed · USCC Verified
- The computed verdict passes on primary documents checked within the last six months. The seal states the date it is valid through; after that date it lapses on its own.
- Listed · Corroborated
- The computed verdict passes on independent corroborating sources, with no credible contradiction. The coin is a US listing; primary documents have not yet been attached, so no seal is shown.
- Listed · Re-verification due
- The coin still meets the methodology on its last verified evidence, but that evidence is more than six months old. Listing is unchanged; the seal is withheld until the evidence is re-checked.
- Listed · Under review
- A material question is open (a restructuring, leadership change, or substantiated correction). The seal is withheld until the review closes, and the review has a due date.
- Listed · Editorial exception
- The owner has listed a coin that does not meet the methodology on the recorded evidence. The exception is labelled wherever the coin appears, states who approved it, when and why, never carries the seal, and leaves the computed tests on the coin page unchanged. Exceptions are dated in the changelog and counted separately from verified and corroborated listings.
- Suspended
- The facts may still point to the United States, but neither primary documents nor independent corroboration currently support them, or sources conflict. The coin is removed from tables and aggregates until the question is resolved.
- Delisted
- The evidence shows the project does not meet the methodology. The page remains, with the date and reason, so older badges and screenshots can be checked against it.
“Last verified” is the retrieval date of the oldest evidence a passing verdict depends on. It cannot be advanced without re-checking that evidence.
Identity binding
Market data is supplied by a third party under identifiers we do not control. Each record binds the verified asset's name, ticker, recorded rebrands, and token contracts. If the asset served under an identifier stops matching, its market data is suspended and it is removed from tables and index totals; a single cosmetic change withholds the seal until an editor confirms it. Project links are shown only on domains the registry records as the project's own.
The American Credentials we publish
For every listed coin, we publish a sourced credentials record. The fields are:
- Headquarters — city, state, and (where useful) approximate coordinates.
- Legal entity — corporate name and state of incorporation.
- Founders — named individuals and roles.
- Regulatory posture — SEC actions or registrations, CFTC posture, FinCEN MSB status, state money-transmitter licenses, NYDFS BitLicense.
- Audits — security-audit firms with engagement scope where known.
- Notable US-based investors — US-domiciled venture capital, strategic, or institutional backers that meet at least one of: lead-investor status in a priced round, named publicly in the project's funding announcements, or holding a board seat. We exclude small follow-on checks from unnamed funds. The list reflects editorial judgment and is informative rather than exhaustive.
Regulatory, audit, and investor items are published only with a non-reference source, and investor annotations such as a round lead only when the source states them. What cannot be substantiated is left out.
Edge cases & how we handle them
- Decentralized protocols with multiple contributors
- We assess where the principal protocol contributor — typically a US development company or US-based foundation — sits. Pure community-stewarded forks without a US development presence are ineligible.
- Foundations registered outside the US
- Disqualifying on its own. We do list projects where a Cayman or Swiss foundation holds the IP and a US-incorporated development company is the principal contributor (e.g., the foundation pays a US Inc. to build).
- Memecoins and community-driven tokens
- Generally ineligible unless a US-based development team or LLC has assumed responsibility for the project. Anonymous founding teams are disqualifying for editorial entries; we will not represent unverifiable claims.
- Stablecoins backed by foreign issuers
- The issuer's domicile determines eligibility, not the asset being represented.
- Projects with active SEC enforcement
- Listed when they otherwise meet the four tests. We disclose the posture in the credentials record; we do not editorialize on the merits of the action.
- Project relocations to or from the US
- A project that incorporates a US entity or relocates its headquarters to the US becomes eligible after twelve consecutive months of US operations under the relocated structure. A project that moves principal operations or its operating entity outside the US is delisted at the next quarterly review, with a final dated entry preserved in the changelog. The waiting period prevents jurisdictional arbitrage; a project that incorporated in Delaware last week does not qualify on the same footing as a project with years of US operating history.
- Acquisitions and changes of control
- When a US-based project is acquired by a foreign parent, eligibility persists if the US operating entity remains intact and continues to satisfy the four tests; if the acquirer dissolves the US entity or relocates principal operations abroad, the project is delisted. When a foreign project is acquired by a US parent, eligibility is not automatic — we re-evaluate against the four tests after the same twelve-month integration period applied to relocations.
- Wrapped and bridged assets
- Wrappers and bridge-issued tokens are treated as distinct from their underlying assets. Eligibility tracks the wrapper's issuer or the bridge operator, not the asset being represented. A US-issued wrapper of a non-US-based asset is eligible, assessed against its own credentials; a foreign-issued wrapper of a US-based asset is not. We label the wrapped relationship clearly in the credentials record so the reader can see what is and isn't US about each side of the wrapper.
Coverage and exclusions
Absence from the index is recorded as a decision. Assets we evaluated and did not list are published on the reviewed, not listed page with the tests they failed, or with a due date when a decision is awaiting evidence. Every listing, correction, suspension, and delisting is dated in the registry changelog, and changelog entries are never edited or removed.
Suggesting a coin or contesting a listing
We welcome corrections. To suggest a coin or contest a credential, open an issue in the public allowlist repository, or email [email protected]. Include the project name, the criterion at issue, and a primary source.
We aim to respond within ten business days, though complex cases may take longer. Material corrections are published with a dated changelog entry; minor fixes (typos, link rot) are made in place without a separate changelog note.
A contest opens nothing by itself: a listing's status or seal changes only when an editor records new evidence against the tests. Messages claiming to speak for a project are confirmed through a channel on that project's own domain before they are acted on.
How to check a USCC claim
The only authoritative statement of a coin's status is its live page at uscoincap.com/coin/…. Screenshots, social cards, and embedded badges show the status on the day they were made; each carries that date. If a live page shows a coin as suspended or delisted, that supersedes any earlier mark.
Worked example: USDC
The verdicts below are computed from the registry record, exactly as on the coin page.
Test 1 · Headquarters in the United States Pass
Circle Internet Financial, LLC is headquartered in Boston, MA.
Evidence: https://www.occ.gov/news-issuances/news-releases/2025/nr-occ-2025-125a.pdf
Test 2 · Founding team is American Not met
0 of 2 named founders are established US persons holding operational roles today; a majority is required.
Test 3 · Primary operations occur in the United States Pass
Circle Internet Financial, LLC issues USDC under US money transmitter licenses and a New York BitLicense, met the SEC Crypto Task Force on March 5, 2025, and Circle applied to the OCC to charter a national trust bank to manage USDC reserves.
Evidence: https://www.sec.gov/files/memo-circle-internet-financial-llc-030525.pdf · https://www.occ.gov/news-issuances/news-releases/2025/nr-occ-2025-125a.pdf
Test 4 · US legal entity Pass
Circle Internet Financial, LLC is registered in DE.
Evidence: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1876042/000187604226000062/exhibit211-listofsubsidiar.htm · https://data.ny.gov/resource/n9v6-gdp6.json?dos_id=6028056
Ruling: Tests 1 and 4 pass with at least one of Tests 2 or 3. Eligible.
What this is and isn't
USCoinCap is editorial. Inclusion is not an endorsement; exclusion is not a verdict. Market data is sourced from CoinGecko and is informational, not investment advice. Credentials reflect publicly available information at the time of last verification — they do not assess investment merit, security, or future regulatory action.
Last revised: 2026-09-15 (editorial exceptions disclosed as a listing state). Previous revisions: 2026-09-14 (verdicts computed from graded evidence; listing states; identity binding; coverage and changelog), 2026-04-29. This page is versioned in the public repository.