Circle's USDC stablecoin has widened its lead over Tether's USDT by transaction volume during the first half of 2026, according to new data from Visa's on-chain analytics dashboard published July 6, 2026.
Record Volume Growth
In June alone, stablecoin activity increased to a record $1.79 trillion in adjusted transaction volume, up 63% from May's $1.1 trillion and 125% from approximately $795 billion in June 2025. Visa removes bot activity, exchange transfers, and other blockchain transactions that do not reflect real economic activity before calculating adjusted volume.
The first six months of 2026 totaled $8.82 trillion in adjusted stablecoin transaction volume — more than the $5.8 trillion recorded during all of 2024 and approximately $2 trillion less than the record $10.8 trillion reported in 2025.
USDC's Rising Dominance
USDC accounted for approximately 70% of adjusted transaction volume during the first half of 2026. USDT represented roughly 25%. This marks a dramatic shift from 2020, when USDT made up nearly 90% of adjusted transaction volume while USDC accounted for less than 10%. By 2022, USDC had already grown to approximately 45% of adjusted transaction volume.
The surge in USDC activity reflects growing adoption by banks and other financial institutions expanding their use of stablecoins for payments, settlement, and treasury operations. Standard Chartered and BNY recently added services built around Circle's USDC rather than building their own proprietary stablecoin infrastructure — a trend reflecting broader institutional preference for established networks with regulatory clarity.
What's Driving the Shift
The stablecoin volume surge comes as Wall Street banks accelerate adoption of digital currencies for settlement infrastructure. USDC's regulatory positioning under US money transmission frameworks and Circle's active pursuit of international licenses has made it the preferred choice for institutions requiring compliance assurance over higher yields or market cap dominance.
For cross-border settlement infrastructure, the implications are significant. Stablecoin volumes at this scale demonstrate demand for programmable, instant settlement that traditional correspondent banking cannot match on speed or cost. RLUSD, Ripple's own regulated stablecoin, operates on similar compliance-first principles on the XRP Ledger, competing in the institutional payments segment where trust and regulatory standing matter as much as liquidity.
Sources
For more coverage of digital asset infrastructure, see our analysis of Bitso's MXNB peso-backed stablecoin on the XRP Ledger.