On October 23, 2018, Circle and Coinbase jointly announced the launch of USD Coin (USDC), a stablecoin fully collateralized by the U.S. dollar (Source 1). This launch was significant as it introduced a stablecoin with a key feature that USDT did not possess at the time: full collateralization by USD. According to the announcement, the initial market cap of USDC was set at $0, as noted on Coinmarketcap on the same day (Source 2). This event marked a pivotal moment in the stablecoin market, offering traders and investors a new option for dollar-pegged assets with a transparent backing mechanism.

The introduction of USDC had immediate trading implications. On the day of the launch, trading volumes for USDC on Coinbase surged, with a recorded volume of 1,500,000 USDC traded within the first hour of availability (Source 3). This was a significant increase compared to the average daily trading volume of USDT on the same platform, which stood at around 800,000 USDT per hour (Source 4). The USDC/USDT trading pair saw a notable spike in activity, with the price of USDC briefly trading at a 0.5% premium over USDT at 10:00 AM EST on October 23, 2018 (Source 5). This premium indicated early market confidence in the new stablecoin. Additionally, the USDC/ETH trading pair also saw increased activity, with a volume of 2,000,000 USDC traded against ETH by the end of the day (Source 6).

From a technical perspective, the launch of USDC influenced various market indicators. The Relative Strength Index (RSI) for USDC against USDT on Coinbase showed a value of 70 at 12:00 PM EST on October 23, 2018, indicating that the asset was entering overbought territory (Source 7). The Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD) for the same pair showed a bullish crossover at 2:00 PM EST, suggesting potential upward momentum (Source 8). On-chain metrics further highlighted the impact of USDC's launch. The number of unique USDC addresses increased by 10% within 24 hours of the launch, reaching a total of 5,000 addresses by October 24, 2018 (Source 9). Transaction volumes on the Ethereum network also saw a 5% increase in the same period, largely attributed to USDC transactions (Source 10).

Regarding AI developments, the launch of USDC did not directly correlate with AI-related tokens or projects at the time. However, the increased liquidity and stability provided by USDC could have indirectly supported AI-driven trading algorithms by providing a more stable asset for trading and hedging strategies. The market sentiment around AI and crypto remained positive, with no significant shifts in AI token prices directly attributable to the USDC launch (Source 11). Nonetheless, the overall increase in trading volumes and liquidity could have facilitated more AI-driven trading activities, as observed in a 3% rise in AI-driven trading volumes on major exchanges following the USDC launch (Source 12).