Circle’s USDC is leaving Tether behind in the stablecoin volume race, new data from Visa shows

Circle’s USDC Widens Lead Over Tether

Circle’s USDC stablecoin widened its lead over competitor Tether’s USDT by transaction volume during the first half of 2026, according to fresh data from Visa’s onchain dashboard. 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 about $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.

Institutional Adoption Drives Growth

These figures come as banks and other financial institutions expand their use of stablecoins for payments, settlement and treasury operations. Standard Chartered and BNY recently added services around Circle’s USDC rather than building their own infrastructure, which also reflects a broader shift toward using established stablecoin networks as activity and demand for fiat-pegged digital assets increases.

Record Transaction Volumes

The first six months of the year totaled $8.82 trillion in adjusted stablecoin transaction volume. That is more than the $5.8 trillion recorded during all of 2024 and $2 trillion less than the record $10.8 trillion reported in 2025.

• USDC accounted for about 70% of adjusted transaction volume during the first half of 2026.
• USDT represented roughly 25%.

In 2020, USDT made up nearly 90% of adjusted transaction volume. USDC accounted for less than 10%. By 2022, USDC accounted for about 45% of adjusted transaction volume.

Zcash’s Tachyon Upgrade

Zcash’s Tachyon upgrade aims to scale shielded payments, improve quantum readiness, and test whether its funding, security, and governance can hold.

Why it matters: Zcash’s Tachyon upgrade aims to scale shielded payments, improve quantum readiness, and test whether its funding, security, and governance can hold.