YC settles a startup round in USDC

Y Combinator has completed its first startup investment settled entirely in stablecoins, sending $500,000 in USD Coin to Totalis on Solana. (theblock.co) Totalis said it received the money in three onchain transfers: a $1 test, then $124,999, then $375,000. The startup is in Y Combinator’s 2026 batch and appears in the accelerator’s directory as an active company founded in 2026. (theblock.co) (ycombinator.com) The company is building a prediction-markets platform for more complex trades across geopolitics, crypto, and sports, according to The Block. Totalis said the funds are being held on Ramp, a financial operations platform, and that it plans to use Ramp for both stablecoin and fiat transactions. (theblock.co) A stablecoin is a crypto token designed to hold a fixed price, usually $1, so companies can move dollars over blockchain networks without using bank wires. Solana is the blockchain used for this transfer, and Y Combinator’s Nemil Dalal said in February that USDC transfers on major chains usually cost less than 1 cent and settle in under 1 second. (theblock.co) Y Combinator had already said on February 3 that startups in its Spring 2026 batch could choose to receive their standard funding in USDC instead of a wire transfer. Fortune reported at the time that founders could choose chains including Ethereum and Solana for those payouts. (theblock.co) (finance.yahoo.com) This week’s transfer turns that option into a completed transaction, not just a policy change. Garry Tan, Y Combinator’s president and chief executive, said on X that the stablecoin payout option applies to any Y Combinator-funded startup, not only crypto companies. (theblock.co) Y Combinator has backed nearly 100 crypto-related startups since its first investment in Coinbase in 2012, according to Dalal. Its crypto and Web3 directory now lists 73 companies, including newer payments and stablecoin startups such as BlindPay and SpotPay. (theblock.co) (ycombinator.com 1) (ycombinator.com 2) The move also has skeptics. In a March discussion on Hacker News about Y Combinator’s stablecoin option, some commenters called it mostly symbolic and argued startups should keep treasury operations as conventional as possible. (news.ycombinator.com) For now, the clearest change is operational: one Y Combinator company received its full $500,000 seed check over a public blockchain instead of through a bank wire. That gives Y Combinator a live example as it offers the same route to future founders. (theblock.co)