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 rose to a record $1.79 trillion in adjusted transaction volume, up 63% from May’s $1.1 trillion and 125% from around $795 billion in June 2025. Visa removes bot activity, exchange transfers, and other blockchain transactions that do not reflect real economic activity before calculating the adjusted volume.
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 Circles’ USDC rather than building their own infrastructure, also reflecting a broader shift towards using established stablecoin networks as activity and demand for fiat-pegged digital assets increases.
The first six months of the year accounted for $8.82 trillion in adjusted stablecoin transaction volume. That’s more than the $5.8 trillion recorded in 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 in the first half of 2026. USDT represented about 25%.
