Circle’s stablecoin USDC widened its lead over rival Tether’s USDT in terms of trading volume during the first half of 2026, according to new data from Visa’s on-chain dashboard.
In June alone, stablecoin activity reached 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.
These figures come as banks and other financial institutions expand their use of stablecoins for payment, settlement and treasury operations. Standard Chartered and BNY have recently added services around Circles’ USDC rather than building their own infrastructure, which also reflects a broader shift toward using established stablecoin networks as activity and demand for digital assets linked to fiat currency increases.
The first six months of the year totaled $8.82 trillion in adjusted stablecoin trading volume. That’s more than the $5.8 trillion reported in all of 2024 and $2 trillion shy of the record $10.8 trillion reported in 2025.
USDC accounted for approximately 70% of adjusted trading volume during the first half of 2026. USDT accounted for approximately 25%.
