Not sure about this, isn't it hard to convert to fiat currency for real-world spending? Since it is often used for illegal activities, Coinbase (and I guess other big exchanges as well) don't trade it.
You'll still get a 1099 with zero capital gains for it.
Sorry, but I'm not much informed about cryptocurrencies. How does one get USDC from Monero? Through some other exchange acceping both?