Circle-issued USDC stablecoin has surpassed Tether’s USDT in terms of adjusted transaction volume for the first time since 2019, according to a report from investment bank Mizuho. The report also found that in 2026, the USDC had processed a transaction volume of approximately 2.2 trillion, and its rival, USDT, processed around $1.3 trillion in the same period.
Adjusted transaction volume eliminates internal transactions and non-economic activities, thus providing a clearer view of how a given asset is being used. According to this indicator, the USDC currently comprises approximately 64% of the combined adjusted volume of transactions between the two most popular stablecoins.
Recent data on the market indicates that there has been a notable increase in interactions of stablecoins in 2026. On-chain analytics indicate that in February 2026, the overall volume of transactions of stablecoins was approximately 1.8 trillion one of the most significant volumes in recent months.
Of this, an estimated amount of $1.26 trillion in transactions was done by USDC in February 2026. Comparatively, USDT handled approximately 514 billion transactions in the same month. This growth can also be due to the increasing demand for regulated digital dollar systems.
Companies are also adopting stablecoins in trade settlement and liquidity management. Moreover, USDC has been more widely used in decentralized finance systems, either as collateral or as the base pair.
Nevertheless, USDT market capitalization remains the biggest relative to USDC. Although Tether is processing fewer transactions, its supply is still bigger and more significant than that of USDC, which allows it to remain the largest stablecoin on the market.
The growth of the use of USDC in the digital asset market has multiple causes. Banks are looking into the possibility of using stablecoins in order to minimize the costs of transactions. The transactions carried out via blockchain could be finalized within minutes, as compared to bank wires which could take between one and three days to clear.
The USDC is also gaining momentum through corporate treasury business. The transfer of funds between exchanges, payment systems, and blockchain networks is increasingly carried out with the help of stablecoins. As these systems continue to expand, stablecoins are acting as the bridge between traditional finance systems and digital assets.
Also Read: US Sanctions North Korean Crypto Network Linked to $800M Scheme
There is also a rise in global adoption of stablecoins. Consequently, the rivalry between large issuers of stablecoins will probably grow, including Circle and Tether.