The Centre Consortium, a stablecoin standards organization founded by Circle and Coinbase, the issuer of USDC is covering the issued USDC with its reserves (cash and short-dated U.S. treasuries) and USDC reserves are held in accounts designated ‘for the benefit of customers’ and there are bankruptcy protections.

USDC is available natively on 8 blockchains, with more integrations expected. These 8 blockchains are:

8 blockchains | https://www.circle.com/en/usdc/developers

As of 5. Feb 2023, we have ~41.9507 Billion USDC in these 8 blockchains, but circulating supply is ~42.0103 B. Where are those 940.4 Million USDC? Bridged to other networks like Polygon or Arbitrum? NO! USDC wrapped on other chains are included in the table above already.

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The missing coins were issued by Circle's clients (account holders), that bring it to other blockchains. The vast majority of "side" USDC is named Binance-Peg USD Coin and is now on BNB Smart Chain ~879 Million USDC,

Binance-Peg USD Coin | https://bscscan.com/token/0x8ac76a51cc950d9822d68b83fe1ad97b32cd580d

from which one DEX, Pancakeswap, utilizes 1.154 Million USDC.

USDC in PCS | https://bscscan.com/address/0x8ac76a51cc950d9822d68b83fe1ad97b32cd580d

For example another 784 usdc is on Bitcoin cash chain called BlockNG-Peg USDC Token, Kucoin manages ~30 M KCC-Peg USD Coin (TOKEN) on KuCoin Community Chain and so on.

So if these clients get into trouble, your coins aren't covered by Centre Consortium.

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*Disclaimer: DYOR, I may be wrong.