USDC Supply Hits Record $81.1B After Fresh $500M Minting as Stablecoin Adoption Accelerates
Circle's USDC stablecoin supply has surged to a record $81.1 billion following a fresh $500 million mint, marking a pivotal moment in the intensifying stablecoin race as adoption accelerates across decentralized finance. The milestone brings USDC closer to rival Tether's $183 billion dominance, with the dollar-pegged asset expanding its influence in prediction markets, perpetual futures trading, and lending protocols while increasingly replacing USDT on U.S. and European exchanges.
USDC may turn into an institutional token
While USDT serves international whales and retail investors, Circle focuses on its potential to become an institutional-grade platform.
The token was expanding more aggressively in the past week, adding a total of $2B to its supply, potentially targeting large-scale institutional usage.
CIRCLE JUST MINTED $500M USDC
Circle has minted $500M USDC in the past 24 hours – and $2 BILLION USDC in the past week.
Institutional money wants access to crypto. pic.twitter.com/eI7ZrAxzjp
— Arkham (@arkham) March 13, 2026
Stablecoin supply has been relatively flat for the past five months, with no significant minting following the October 2025 crash. The recent revival of minting coincided with a market-wide recovery and an improving sentiment.
USDC increased its transaction velocity
The total supply of USDC is still down by 1.24% net in the past month, but activity has picked up. In the past 30 days, USDC transactions grew by 160% according to Artemis data. In the same period, USDT turnover increased by 140%.
In the past month, over 152K users were added to Circle’s asset. Over 857K users were added in January. In total, the stablecoin has over 6.22M users and is locked in over 65,000 contract addresses. Circle’s smart contract is also often in the top 3 Ethereum gas burners, due to trading and DeFi activity.
USDC built up a record number of users after significant new adoption in January and February. | Source: Dune Analytics
USDC now carries over 10 times the liquidity from the 2021 bull market, when the token was celebrating a supply of $8B. Currently, USDC is often used by whales to move funds to Binance or Hyperliquid.
USDC is also boosting stablecoin supply and traffic on Solana, after the recent minting of an additional $3.5B. Solana is the main target for new minting, used for trading and payments.
The stablecoin aims to settle payments similar to fintech apps, while also being used in decentralized apps by crypto natives. Stablecoins have reached a supply of over 319B tokens. Tether and Circle remain the leaders, but no longer monopolize the market. The share of USDT and USDC has fallen from a peak of 95% down to around 85% as of early 2026.
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