Track market-moving stories before they get noisy

Circle has asked a Wisconsin court to dismiss a criminal contempt complaint. It argues it lacks the technical ability to comply with an order requiring it to invalidate frozen USDC and issue replacement tokens to compensate an alleged fraud victim.

The filing centers on the technical limits of USDC once it leaves Circle’s custody. While the stablecoin issuer says it can freeze tokens held in third-party wallets by blocklisting addresses, it argues it cannot seize, destroy, or reissue those tokens because it does not control the wallets’ private keys.

Circle argues it complied with freeze order but could not reissue USDC The dispute stems from an alleged cryptocurrency scam in which a Wisconsin resident lost more than 381,000 USDC. It was lost after the stablecoins were transferred from Crypto.com to a wallet controlled by an alleged fraudster. 

Prosecutors say Circle froze the assets after receiving a court warrant, but later refused to invalidate the tokens and issue replacement USDC for the victim. This led to a criminal contempt complaint in April.

In its motion to dismiss, Circle says it immediately complied with the initial warrant by blocklisting the wallet address. It prevented the frozen USDC from being transferred. 

However, it argues that the second warrant requires technically impossible actions. This is because the tokens were held in a third-party wallet outside Circle’s control.

The company says it does not possess the private keys to third-party wallets and therefore cannot transfer, invalidate, destroy, or “burn and reissue” USDC stored there. It also argues that it cannot create replacement tokens tied to assets it cannot first invalidate.

Company challenges jurisdiction and cites DOJ discussions Beyond the technical argument, Circle contends the Wisconsin court lacked jurisdiction to issue parts of the warrant. It says both the company and the property at issue were located outside the state. 

It also argues that the contempt complaint omitted key facts, including its repeated communications with investigators explaining the technical limitations of USDC.

The filing also reveals that Circle has been working with the U.S. Department of Justice on a broader mechanism for compensating victims in federal investigations. According to the motion, those discussions have resulted in a general agreement. 

Under the agreement, Circle could voluntarily issue replacement USDC following a final forfeiture order and a permanent blocklisting order.

Circle has asked the court to dismiss the complaint or, alternatively, hold an evidentiary hearing to consider what it says are critical facts omitted from the original filing.

A test of stablecoin issuers’ technical limits The case highlights an important distinction in how regulated stablecoins operate. Circle maintains it can freeze USDC by blocklisting blockchain addresses, but cannot directly control tokens held in wallets for which it does not possess the private keys. 

The company argues that technical architecture, rather than policy, limits what actions it can take after USDC enters third-party custody.

If the court addresses those arguments, the case could provide further clarity on the extent to which stablecoin issuers can be compelled to recover or recreate digital assets held on public blockchains.

Final Summary Circle has asked a Wisconsin court to dismiss a contempt complaint, arguing it cannot technically invalidate or reissue USDC held in third-party wallets. The filing also discloses discussions with the U.S. Department of Justice on a voluntary framework for compensating victims.

Not financial or tax advice. PANews content is strictly educational and informational and is not investment advice, financial advice, tax advice, legal advice, or a solicitation to buy or sell any digital asset, security, or financial product. Do your own research and consult qualified advisers.

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Not financial or tax advice. PANews content is strictly educational and informational and is not investment advice, financial advice, tax advice, legal advice, or a solicitation to buy or sell any digital asset, security, or financial product. Do your own research and consult qualified advisers.

Disclosure. PANews may publish sponsored content, partner content, advertisements, affiliate links, event promotions, and market commentary involving Web3 projects, service providers, or financial products. PANews personnel, contributors, or affiliates may hold digital assets or other interests related to covered topics. See our Terms of Service.

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@aave Labs has opened up the yield engine powering its own savings app to any business that wants to use it. The product is called Stable Vaults, and it is designed to let neobanks, wallets, and payment apps embed stablecoin earning without having to build the underlying infrastructure themselves.

What Stable Vaults does In practical terms, Stable Vaults takes the variable rates generated by DeFi lending and converts them into a more predictable return for end users. The operator, whether that is a fintech company, a wallet provider, or an exchange, sets the rate it promises its customers, keeps any yield earned above that level, and absorbs the shortfall if the strategy underperforms.

On the technical side, the product allocates deposited stablecoins across multiple yield sources, including Aave V3 and V4 markets, and handles liquidity management, capital allocation, and yield distribution automatically. It supports USDC, USDT, and Aave's own GHO stablecoin. Operators can also restrict access to approved users and configure different yield tiers for different customer segments, giving businesses meaningful flexibility over how they deploy the product.

Crucially, users do not need to interact with any DeFi protocol directly. Operating costs such as bridging and liquidity management are factored into the vault's overall yield structure rather than charged as explicit fees to the end user.

A growing market, and a direct rival to Morpho The launch positions Aave against Morpho, which has already built a meaningful foothold in the white-label vault market. Coinbase, for example, began offering a high-yield USDC savings vault powered by Morpho and Ethena in June and has already crossed $200 million in assets under management.

The broader context is that stablecoins are increasingly part of everyday payments and digital banking, and fintech firms are looking for ways to let customers earn a return on idle balances. Vaults have emerged as the preferred infrastructure layer to fill that role, moving user deposits automatically between yield strategies without requiring active management.

Aave founder Stani Kulechov said the aim is to make "predictable stablecoin earning simple to plug into any fintech application." The Stable Vaults infrastructure also underpins Aave's own consumer savings app, which is currently in test mode.

Sources:
CoinDesk: Aave rolls out vaults for yield-hungry fintech investors
Aave Protocol Documentation: Aave Earn Vaults

Cathie Wood has said Ripple-backed OpenUSD may struggle to challenge USDT and USDC, even with major corporate names behind it, because stablecoin markets depend on liquidity, trust, collateral use, and daily platform integration.

ARK Says Stablecoin Moats Are Built on Use According to the ARK Invest CEO, stablecoins are like the monetary networks that evolve with increasing adoption by user bases, exchanges, wallets, and payment companies. She added that USDT and USDC have already established robust network effects in the crypto trading and payments space and DeFi.

In a research note, ARK Invest Director of Digital Assets Lorenzo Valente suggested that OUSD’s odds of supplanting the two biggest stablecoins are low. In his blog post “Why USDT and USDC are harder to kill than crypto Twitter thinks”, Valente also cautioned that many market participants may be overly optimistic about the power of the OUSD launch.

Open Standard, led by Stripe-owned Bridge co-founder Zach Abrams, introduced OUSD last month. The stablecoin is expected to be released later this year and aims to reduce adoption costs by eliminating issuance and redemption fees, sharing the majority of reserves with participants, and establishing independent governance.

Over 140 companies in the payments, banking, crypto, and tech sectors have been associated with the project, such as Ripple, BlackRock, Visa, Stripe, Google, Coinbase, DBS, and OKX. Some South Korean companies, such as Samsung Electronics and Shinhan Financial Group, have, however, stated they did not have an official agreement to participate in the consortium.

OUSD Faces Questions Over Liquidity and Incentives Valente said stablecoin network effects are “not created by a long list of logos”. He said they are derived from liquidity, habit, collateral acceptance, market depth, settlement flows, integrations, and risk of causing disruption to systems that are working.

His analysis also challenged the notion that OUSD would be able to develop a new yield model for users. He said OUSD is expected to be GENIUS Act compliant, meaning it cannot directly share yield with stablecoin holders. He termed the model “reserve economics” and not paying end-users.

Valente said that Binance serves as a prime case in point that exchanges might choose not to change forks when another stablecoin has a better reserve economics. According to him, Binance has approximately $45 billion in USDT, Bybit has around $4 billion, and OKX has around $9 billion.

He explained that USDT is still connected to the trading operation of Binance because it is used as a quote asset, a collateral asset, and a unit of account by traders. If they have “reserve cash” from another stablecoin, “it would have to be balanced against the risk that it would damage a bigger trading business”, Valente said.

Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire, like ARK Invest CEO Cathie Wood, has also earlier defended USDC after OUSD was announced. He noted that USDC enjoys global liquidity, developer integrations, and regulatory compliance but doubted the viability of sending the bulk of the profits back to partners at a large scale. Allaire said that such a system could cause “starvation” of the infrastructure.

If you want more information about lending platforms for institutions, check out our page on Institutional Crypto Lending

Stablecoin issuer Circle has come under scrutiny from US prosecutors over allegations that it has resisted court orders and law enforcement requests aimed at recovering crypto stolen through scams, according to officials in Wisconsin and New York.

The dispute centers on a Wisconsin fraud case in which Circle froze approximately 381,000 USDC but later declined to comply with a court order directing it to invalidate those tokens and issue replacements to law enforcement.

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Circle has denied wrongdoing, arguing it lacked the technical ability to carry out the order, that the complaint should be dismissed, and that prosecutors failed to pursue alternative solutions.

Law enforcement officials say the case underscores the growing challenge of combating crypto-enabled fraud, as funds can be transferred across blockchains before courts can intervene.

Prosecutors have also questioned Circle’s policy of freezing assets only through a formal legal process, while industry experts argue the company could implement technology similar to rival Tether’s system for burning and reissuing stolen tokens.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

ARK Invest CEO Cathie Wood said the firm’s research views stablecoins as monetary networks that become stronger as adoption grows, driven by trust, collateral use and integration across financial platforms.

Wood said those network effects have helped Tether’s USDT and Circle’s USDC establish dominant positions in the stablecoin market.

Referring to research by Director of Digital Assets at Arc Invest, Lorenzo Valente, she said newer entrants such as Open USD (OUSD) are unlikely to overtake market leaders.

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In @ARKInvest’s view, stablecoins are monetary networks with effects that compound over time, thanks to trust, collateral utility, and integrations. The network effects of USDT and USDC have been powerful. @LorenzoARK explains convincingly why OUSD is unlikely to displace them. https://t.co/qEUimwpsiK

— Cathie Wood (@CathieDWood) July 9, 2026

Open Standard, led by Stripe-owned Bridge co-founder Zach Abrams, introduced OUSD late last month.

The stablecoin is supported by more than 140 companies, though Samsung Electronics, Shinhan Financial Group and other South Korean companies said they never formally agreed to participate in the consortium.

Launch backers like BlackRock, Visa, Stripe, Google, Coinbase and DBS said the initiative aims to lower the cost of stablecoin adoption by removing issuance and redemption fees, sharing most reserve income with participants and establishing independent governance. OUSD is expected to launch later this year and is intended to reduce reliance on centralized issuers while expanding institutional access.

The announcement comes as competition in the stablecoin market intensifies. The sector has grown to nearly $308 billion, and major payments companies have stepped up investment through acquisitions and new blockchain-based settlement services.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Vivian Nguyen. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

Crypto-related stocks in U.S. markets continued their rally during trading hours, with MARA surging 15.27%.

According to market data from BIT (bit.com), US-listed crypto-related stocks continued to strengthen during intraday trading. Details: Strategy (MSTR) rose 2.11%; Circle (CRCL) gained 0.83%; MARA Holdings (MARA) surged 15.27% after announcing the acquisition of a Texas-based 2000MW computing power park project company for up to $600 million; Riot Platforms (RIOT) climbed 6.1%.

40 minutes ago

JPMorgan: The biggest risk for Bitcoin is not Strategy’s sell-off, but blockchain adoption that bypasses public chains and tokens.

JPMorgan Chase’s analyst team noted that the market views Strategy’s Bitcoin sale plan as a key risk for the crypto sector, but it is not a major structural threat to Bitcoin. The more fundamental risk lies in tokenization, payments, and settlements increasingly taking place on permissioned infrastructure that does not rely on public blockchains. If this trend continues, the entire crypto ecosystem could face a "structural downgrade"—marked by slower transaction activity, reduced liquidity, and weaker capital inflows—ultimately weighing on Bitcoin. The analysts stated bluntly: "In our view, a more significant risk stems from the way blockchain is adopted in traditional finance, which continues to bypass public, permissionless networks." The analysts explained that institutional adoption so far has clearly favored permissioned chains, as they offer advantages in privacy, KYC/AML controls, governance, throughput, legal accountability, and regulatory certainty, posing a competitive threat to public blockchains like Ethereum. If tokenized deposits are widely adopted—especially in non-transferable forms favored by regulators—it could reduce demand for stablecoins in institutional payments and settlements; SWIFT’s blockchain initiative and central bank digital currency (CBDC) projects such as the digital euro and digital renminbi further strengthen regulated alternatives. In the roughly $500 billion tokenized real-world assets market, while Ethereum currently holds a certain share, this likely reflects early-stage experimentation rather than the market’s long-term structure. As institutional adoption grows, issuance, custody, settlement, and lifecycle management will likely be conducted more on private or permissioned infrastructure that meets requirements for identity, confidentiality, and operational resilience, with public blockchains used only for distribution and limited secondary trading.

40 minutes ago

Security Warning: Abnormal on-chain fund flows detected for the CodexField project on BNB Chain.

On-chain investigator Specter has issued a community security alert, warning of potential fund misappropriation risks associated with the CodexField project on BNB Chain. On-chain tracking shows the project has amassed over $85 million in funds. Specter detected abnormal on-chain fund flows yesterday: a wallet bridged 17.3 million USDT from TRON to Ethereum, then swapped the tokens for DAI via Bitget Swap on Polygon. So far, $6.5 million has been transferred out, while the remaining $10.8 million is still in transit. The funds were originally bridged from Ethereum to TRON roughly six months ago, and the source wallet is linked to CodexField’s deposit contract. Below are key addresses for users to verify on their own: EVM: 0xBc606358910b3720d136F0d4Ce12b759C270747a TRON: TQNTEYadFVVQeobBtctSjurJ5RpfBsTmqh, TAzpg8L1WkkzCxxZk8TYnvaRYahehh52MK Related deposit contract: 0x9E6A75b546B65E7B9D34E2c9aB8Fe224B9aA52AA Additional red flags: The project requires a minimum $100 deposit for participation. Blockchain security tool Blocksec MetaSuites initially labeled the deposit contract as "Fake CodexField", but Specter’s follow-up investigation found the contract is actually operated by the CodexField team itself. The project uses multiple domains and subdomains to collect user deposits, and the team previously shared these domains via official channels. Its fund flow pattern is unusual, deviating from standard fund management practices: the project bridges funds across multiple blockchains, routes them through intermediate wallets, and ultimately sends assets to centralized exchanges. Specter noted that based on on-chain activity, the project warrants high vigilance. It advises all users interacting with CodexField to exercise extreme caution until the team provides a transparent explanation of its fund movements.

40 minutes ago

Post-quantum cryptography management platform QIZ Security closes $17 million seed round.

QIZ Security, a crypto posture and post-quantum cryptography (PQC) management platform, announced the completion of a $17 million seed funding round, led by Bessemer Venture Partners and Merlin Ventures, with participation from Evolution Equity Partners, Qbeat Ventures, Singtel Innov8, and Qino Cyber Capital. The capital will be used to accelerate product R&D and market expansion. QIZ Security was co-founded by Ben Volkow, Lenny Ridel, and Itan Barmes; the team has years of experience in cybersecurity, enterprise services, and post-quantum transformation, with Barmes previously leading Deloitte’s global quantum cybersecurity readiness team. Its platform helps enterprises identify and assess crypto asset risks and implement remediation measures, and is currently applied in industries including finance, telecommunications, healthcare, and critical infrastructure. It has also established partnerships with Cisco, AWS, Google, CrowdStrike, Deloitte, EY, and IBM, among others.

40 minutes ago

Hyperliquid recommends that the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) formally recognize that on-chain protocols are not required to register, and non-custodial wallets do not serve as financial intermediaries.

Hyperliquid Policy Center (HPC) and Phantom have jointly submitted comments to the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) in response to the agency’s request for feedback on whether existing rules keep pace with the evolution of financial technology, proposing to explicitly extend the distinction between "building tools" and "operating regulated businesses" to on-chain markets. The comments note that software engineers have been developing matching engines for regulated futures trading platforms for decades, and the CFTC has never classified them as trading platform operators. However, developers in the digital asset sector have long lacked such clarity, forcing many to opt for offshore development. The current CFTC, led by Chairman Selig, is working to address this gap and carve out room for innovation for fintech firms in digital asset and derivatives markets. The two entities put forward three key recommendations: First, explicitly confirm that merely publishing on-chain protocol software itself does not require registration — a factor often decisive for engineers when choosing where to develop. Second, establish a clear path for the CFTC’s registration bodies to operate regulated functions using on-chain infrastructure, enabling trading platforms and clearinghouses to replace decades-old legacy systems with transparent infrastructure. Third, formalize Phantom’s recent no-action letter into official rules, eliminating the need for self-custody wallet providers to apply for approved exemptions on a case-by-case basis. HPC and Phantom stress that self-custody and transparent on-chain systems can embed investor protection directly into technology, while regulated intermediaries retain responsibility for issues that technology cannot resolve independently. This approach will bring the next generation of financial markets within reach of U.S. consumers.

40 minutes ago

Micron raises its U.S. investment plan to $250 billion, betting on demand for AI memory chips.

Micron Technology plans to increase spending on its new U.S. factory to $250 billion to meet the surging demand for memory chips driven by the global artificial intelligence boom. The move adds $50 billion to Micron’s previously announced $200 billion commitment to expanding domestic U.S. chip manufacturing, covering projects in New York, Idaho, and Virginia. The expenditure is expected to run through 2035, and will help the company achieve its target of producing 40% of its DRAM products in the U.S. within the next decade.

40 minutes ago

Ethena Labs just removed one of the biggest friction points in its synthetic dollar ecosystem. Onboarded mint users can now mint and redeem USDe using USDC at zero fees, eliminating the basis-point toll that previously ate into every conversion.

The change applies exclusively to whitelisted participants who have cleared KYC and KYB checks and signed Ethena’s Mint User Agreement. Everyone else still gets their USDe the old-fashioned way: through secondary markets, exchanges, or partner platforms like Morpho vaults.

What actually changed and why it matters Before this update, direct minting and redemption of USDe was already restricted to vetted counterparties, primarily market makers and institutional participants. But even those approved users were paying fees on the conversion. Now that cost drops to 0 bps.

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Ethena has also indicated it will update fee schedules for transactions involving non-whitelisted assets, with the new rates visible on public dashboards. So while USDC conversions are now free, other collateral types may still carry costs.

USDe’s positioning in the stablecoin landscape USDe is a delta-neutral synthetic dollar built on Ethereum, which means it maintains its peg not by holding dollars in a bank account but by combining crypto collateral with offsetting derivatives positions. The result is a token that tracks the dollar without directly depending on fiat reserves.

This makes it fundamentally different from USDC, which is backed 1:1 by cash and cash equivalents held by Circle.

Ethena’s integrations extend across both DeFi and CeFi. The protocol works with platforms including HTX for direct mint and redeem functionality, and Morpho for vault-based strategies.

What this means for investors and the broader market The restriction to KYC’d and KYB’d users is worth noting. Ethena is clearly threading the needle between DeFi accessibility and regulatory compliance. For institutions and compliant funds, this is a non-issue. For the permissionless-maximalist crowd, it’s another reminder that the biggest DeFi protocols are increasingly operating within traditional compliance frameworks.

A delta-neutral strategy is only as good as the funding rates it captures from derivatives markets. In periods of sustained negative funding, USDe’s value proposition gets tested in ways that free minting can’t solve. Investors eyeing this development should watch not just the fee structure, but the underlying health of the derivatives markets that keep USDe’s engine running.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

ARK Invest CEO Cathie Wood has asserted that incumbent issuers will continue to dominate the stablecoin market. According to Wood, Tether’s USDT and Circle’s USDC remain at the forefront thanks to strong network effects, leaving new competitors struggling to catch up.

ARK Invest’s outlook on stablecoinsWood has described stablecoins not simply as digital assets but as monetary networks that strengthen as usage expands. She noted that growing adoption enhances these networks’ value, highlighting how trust, collateral structure, and integrations with financial platforms have positioned USDT and USDC at the center of the market.

Cathie Wood emphasizes that as stablecoins gain wider adoption, they evolve into increasingly powerful monetary networks, making it unlikely that USDT and USDC will be easily dethroned by new issuers.

Referencing recent research by ARK Invest’s Digital Assets Lead, Lorenzo Valente, Wood underscored that despite mounting competition, the chances of new stablecoins surpassing the current leaders remain slim. Each new user, business, and platform partnership further reinforces the network effect enjoyed by the leading stablecoins.

This dynamic grants USDT and USDC significant advantages in trading, payments, and decentralized finance. Their broad acceptance and deep liquidity create high barriers for newcomers seeking a foothold in the market.

New entrants and intensifying competitionAs the global stablecoin market approaches $308 billion in size, competition is intensifying from both crypto-native companies and traditional financial institutions. Recently, several projects have emerged with a specific focus on institutional use cases.

One such venture is Open Standard, which has launched Open USD under the leadership of Zach Abrams, co-founder of Stripe’s Bridge. Open Standard is structured as a consortium of multiple companies working together.

Mini glossary: Consortium refers to a collaborative structure formed by multiple companies for a specific purpose. In the stablecoin sector, this model aims to distribute governance and revenue among a broader group of participants rather than a single firm.

The Open USD initiative aims to eliminate issuance and redemption fees, share the majority of reserve income among participants, and operate under an independent governance model.

The project has reportedly secured backing from more than 140 companies. Its goals include removing fees for issuance and redemption, distributing a significant portion of reserve income to contributors, and maintaining an independent governance system.

However, notable firms including Samsung Electronics, Shinhan Financial Group, and others from South Korea clarified that despite appearing on the supporter list, they have not formally committed to joining the consortium. This development has sparked new questions regarding the reliability and nature of institutional backing in emerging stablecoin projects.

Balance in the stablecoin market persistsAs payment companies and financial institutions ramp up investments in blockchain-based settlement systems, the stablecoin sector continues to expand rapidly. New issuers are attempting to enter the space through partnerships, acquisitions, and infrastructure projects.

Nevertheless, ARK Invest’s assessment suggests that established stablecoins may retain their leadership, given their vast user bases, deep liquidity, and extensive integration throughout the crypto ecosystem. The firm argues these factors further enhance network effects, making it increasingly difficult for newcomers to win significant market share.

Disclaimer: The information contained in this article does not constitute investment advice. Investors should be aware that cryptocurrencies carry high volatility and therefore risk, and should conduct their own research.

Circle walked into arguably the most important room in global central banking and made a case that stablecoin redemption isn’t a feature. It’s a right.

At the Bank for International Settlements’ 2026 Annual General Meeting, during a Financial Stability Institute special session on stablecoins, Circle laid out its philosophical framework for USDC: issuing the token is a regulated privilege, but redeeming it at face value is a fundamental user entitlement. With USDC’s circulation sitting at approximately $75.3 billion and the token facilitating payments across more than 180 countries, the pitch carried some weight.

Privilege versus right, and why the framing matters Every USDC redemption request has historically been honored at exactly $1. That might sound obvious for something called a stablecoin, but the history of crypto is littered with supposedly stable assets that turned out to be anything but. TerraUSD’s collapse in 2022, which vaporized roughly $40 billion in value, remains the cautionary tale that haunts every stablecoin conversation.

Circle’s framework positions USDC as the anti-Terra. Full reserves, monthly attestations, and a commitment to regulatory compliance under frameworks like Europe’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation.

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Qualified institutional users access direct 1:1 minting and redemption through Circle Mint, subject to Know Your Customer protocols, established thresholds, and relevant fees. Everyone else transacts through secondary markets.

The BIS problem, and Circle’s answer The BIS has raised persistent concerns about stablecoins’ single-asset backing, their operational elasticity (or lack thereof), and the systemic risks they could pose to the broader financial system.

Circle’s presentation directly addressed several of these criticisms. The company emphasized that USDC reserves are invested in cash, Treasury bills, and regulated funds. Monthly reserve attestations provide a regular transparency checkpoint.

USDC operates across multiple blockchains. For institutional users moving large sums, the direct minting and redemption pathway through Circle Mint offers predictability. For retail users in emerging markets who might not pass institutional KYC thresholds, secondary market access still provides a gateway to dollar-denominated stability.

What this means for investors Circle’s BIS appearance comes at a pivotal moment for stablecoin regulation. The proposed GENIUS Act in the US would create a dedicated federal framework for payment stablecoins. In Europe, MiCA is already live, and Circle was among the first major issuers to secure compliance.

The $75.3 billion in circulation makes USDC the second-largest stablecoin by market cap, trailing only Tether’s USDT. Tether has faced years of questions about its reserve composition and transparency practices. Circle, by contrast, has leaned into the compliance narrative so aggressively that it’s now presenting at central banking summits.

Circle’s revenue has grown significantly alongside USDC’s circulation, but that growth depends partly on the interest earned on reserves, which fluctuates with monetary policy.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

SMIC surpassed Kweichow Moutai in market capitalization.

According to Bitget data, SMIC’s A-share price rose nearly 15%, pushing its total market capitalization to 1.49 trillion yuan. Kweichow Moutai is currently down 1.43%, with a total market cap of 1.48 trillion yuan. (Jinshi)

30 minutes ago

Bitcoin breaks through $63,000

According to HTX market data, Bitcoin has broken through the $63,000 mark, with a 0.74% rise in the past 24 hours.

30 minutes ago

US tech stocks are experiencing one of the most volatile periods in history, with the volatility ratio of the Nasdaq 100 to the S&P 500 hitting a 23-year high.

The Kobeissi Letter noted in a post that tech stocks are experiencing one of the most volatile periods in history. The ratio of the Nasdaq 100 Volatility Index (VXN) to the S&P 500 Volatility Index (VIX) has risen to 1.7, its highest level in 23 years. This marks the first time the ratio has topped 1.5 since 2018. By comparison, the metric peaked at around 1.6 during the 2008 financial crisis. Currently, VXN stands at 28 points, while VIX is at 16 points – the latter is 43% lower than the former. VXN has remained above the 20-point threshold for five consecutive months, the longest such stretch since the 2022 bear market. Markets are pricing in significant volatility risk for tech stocks.

30 minutes ago

A crypto whale closed a $100 million BTC short position, earning a profit of $5.28 million.

According to monitoring by Onchain Lens, a whale closed a $100 million Bitcoin (BTC) short position, earning a profit of $5.28 million. Wallet address 0xcf9 opened the short on June 2 at $68,859 and closed it one hour ago at $62,314, holding the position for 36 days.

30 minutes ago

Nvidia will collaborate with Hugging Face to develop open-source robotics models.

NVIDIA has announced a partnership with Hugging Face to co-develop open-source foundation models for robotics, combining its GPU ecosystem and CUDA technology, along with Hugging Face’s extensive model library and developer community, to significantly lower the barriers to AI training and deployment for robotics. (Jinshi)

30 minutes ago

A newly created wallet withdrew 500 BTC from Binance, worth $31.15 million.

According to monitoring by Onchain Lens, a newly created wallet withdrew 500 BTC from Binance, valued at $31.15 million.

30 minutes ago

Source: Binance EN

This is a general announcement. Products and services referred to here may not be available in your region. Fellow Binancians, We’re back on the Football Pitch! Due to the incredible engagement in The Pitch is Yours, we are bringing the Football Game back to our Binance Discord to celebrate the final stage of the challenge of the year. To mark this occasion, we invite users to join our community activity on Binance Discord. During the Activity Period, users can head to the dedicated Discord channels and submit a quiz for each of the football matches taking place throughout the campaign. For every match, users will be asked to choose the winning team before the match to start. Points are awarded based on the accuracy and how quickly submissions are made. The 180 highest-scoring users at the end of the campaign will share the prize pool of 2,000 USDC, distributed according to the reward structure outlined below. Activity Period: 2026-07-08 15:00 (UTC) to 2026-07-20 23:59 (UTC) How to Participate: Join the Binance DiscordHead to channel #football-matches to see the upcoming match quizClick [Submit Now] and choose your quiz resultYou can update your football quiz anytime before the match closesCheck your submission confirmation in #football-feedTrack your standing in #football-leaderboardJoin the football conversation in #football-discussion Points System: Every interaction counts. The more users participate, the faster users submit, and the more consistent they are, the higher they climb in the leaderboard. Here's how points are earned: ActionPoints per Eligible UserCorrect quiz result+10 pointsParticipate in any match (win or lose)+1 pointFastest and correct submission+3 points2nd fastest and correct submission+2 points3rd fastest and correct submission+1 point3 correct outcomes in a row+5 pointsMaximum points possible108 points Reward Structure: The total prize pool for the campaign is 2,000 USDC. A total of 180 users will be rewarded based on their final position on the leaderboard at the end of the Activity Period. Tier 1 - 1st to 5th Places: Each user will receive 80 USDC (400 USDC total)Tier 2 - 6th to 15th Places: Each user will receive 35 USDC (350 USDC total)Tier 3 - 16th to 25th Places: Each user will receive 25 USDC (250 USDC total)Tier 4 - 26th to 80th Places: Each user will receive 10 USDC (550 USDC total)Tier 5 - 81st to 180th Places: Each user will receive 4.50 USDC (450 USDC total) Terms & Conditions: Products and promotions may not be available in certain countries and to certain users. Content users see should not be construed as solicitation or advice to use any Binance feature. This content is not intended for users to which restrictions apply. Users are responsible for informing themselves about and observing any restrictions and/or requirements imposed with respect to the access to and use of Binance services in each country. Applicable restrictions will be applied to all landing pages in links included in our informational messages. Any participation by users subject to applicable restrictions will be deemed void, and such users will not be eligible for any rewards, prizes, or benefits arising from this promotion.These terms and conditions (“Promotion Terms”) govern users’ participation in the promotion above (“Promotion”). By participating in this Promotion, users agree to these Promotion Terms, and the following additional terms: (a) Binance Terms and Conditions for Prize Promotions; (b) Binance Terms of Use; and (c) Binance Privacy Notice; all of which are incorporated by reference into these terms and conditions. In the case of any inconsistency or conflict between these Promotion Terms, and any other incorporated terms, the provisions of these Promotion Terms shall prevail, followed by the following in this order of precedence, and to the extent of such conflict: (a) Binance Terms and Conditions for Prize Promotions; (b) Binance Terms of Use; and (c) Binance Privacy Notice.Only users who complete identity verification during the Activity Period can qualify for rewards in the Promotion. The products or features referred to above may not be available in users’ regions. Users are responsible for informing themselves about and observing any restrictions and/or requirements imposed with respect to the access to and use of Binance services in each country from which the services are accessed.Rewards will be distributed to eligible users until August 15, 2026 after the campaign ends.Eligible users will be able to login and redeem their token voucher rewards via Profile > Rewards Hub. 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All decisions made by Binance in connection with this campaign are final and binding and no correspondence will be entered into. Thank you for your support! Binance Team 2026-07-08

Stablecoin supply is shrinking, and it’s becoming one of the biggest reasons behind Bitcoin’s weak price action. New data from CryptoQuant shows fresh stablecoin inflows to exchanges have dropped 31% yearly. 

Meanwhile, the combined supply of USDT and USDC is also falling, reducing the buying power needed to support Bitcoin’s recovery.

Stablecoins like USDT and USDC, which are often called the cash of the crypto market are seeing its value shrink by nearly $3 billion every month. 

According to CryptoQuant analyst Axel Adler Jr., stablecoin exchange inflows are now 31% below their yearly average, indicating that investors are pulling money out instead of bringing new capital into crypto exchanges.

The 30-day average of stablecoin inflows has fallen from $3.2 billion in mid-May to around $2.65 billion. Meanwhile, the yearly average remains near $3.86 billion, showing that exchanges are receiving much less fresh capital than normal.

On top of that, the combined USDT and USDC market cap has dropped from almost flat growth in May to nearly negative $3.2 billion today.

Bitcoin Is Losing Its Biggest Source of Buying PowerAdler says the drop in the stablecoin market is directly affecting crypto, especially Bitcoin. 

“When more stablecoins enter the market, buying power grows. When supply shrinks, demand also weakens.”

And since mid-May, supply has been shrinking, reducing liquidity and making it harder for Bitcoin to recover. This lack of new capital has made it harder for Bitcoin to recover. Therefore, Bitcoin has seen a drop of about 19% in May and 20.5% in June.

The slowdown is also visible on-chain. Monthly USDT and USDC transfer volume on Ethereum dropped from about $2.84 trillion in March to nearly $1.5 trillion in May before seeing a small recovery in June.

Bitcoin Is Following A Pattern Seen During 2022 Market CrashThe current trend looks similar to what happened during the 2022 crypto crash. During the bear market, stablecoin supply dropped 34%, while Bitcoin lost around 43% of its value. 

Today, the decline is much smaller, but the direction remains the same. But, the Stablecoin supply has slipped about 4.4% from its $321 billion peak, while Bitcoin has already fallen roughly 32% from its recent year highs.

However, if stablecoin supply continues to surge, Bitcoin could see a bullish rally, as more capital will flow back to the crypto market. 

Story Ends Here

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USDC has now processed more than $90 trillion in cumulative on-chain transaction volume. To put that number in perspective, it’s roughly four times the annual GDP of the United States, all flowing through a single stablecoin.

Circle announced the milestone on July 7, 2026, pegging the exact figure at $90.8 trillion in lifetime volume. For a token that launched in September 2018, that trajectory from zero to nearly $91 trillion tells a story about where institutional money is actually moving in crypto.

The numbers behind the dominance In June 2026, adjusted stablecoin transaction volume hit a record $1.79 trillion, according to Visa’s Allium analytics. USDC captured approximately $1.21 trillion of that total, good for roughly 67% of the entire adjusted stablecoin market in a single month.

Zoom out to the first half of 2026, and the picture sharpens further. USDC commanded about 70% of adjusted stablecoin transaction volumes during the period. USDT, long considered the king of stablecoins by market cap, held just 25%.

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USDC’s circulating supply currently sits at approximately $73 billion, backed by reserves slightly exceeding that amount at around $73.2 billion. The token now operates across more than 34 blockchains.

How USDC flipped the script on USDT Circle became the sole issuer of USDC after dissolving the Centre consortium with Coinbase back in 2023, giving it full control over the token’s direction and strategy.

Circle has also invested heavily in infrastructure, most notably its Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol, or CCTP. This protocol enables native USDC transfers across supported blockchains without the friction and security risks of traditional bridging.

What this means for investors Second, the competitive pressure on USDT is real and accelerating. Tether has historically maintained its lead through sheer ubiquity and first-mover advantage, particularly in Asian markets and on centralized exchanges. But a 70-25 volume split in USDC’s favor suggests that advantage is eroding, at least in the segments of the market where compliance and transparency are table stakes.

Third, consider the liquidity implications. As USDC captures more transaction volume and integrates deeper into traditional financial plumbing, it creates denser liquidity pools on supported chains. That benefits DeFi protocols, trading venues, and any application that relies on stablecoin liquidity to function efficiently.

Circle has positioned USDC not just as a payment token but as a building block for automated, smart-contract-driven financial workflows, including round-the-clock settlements, programmable payroll, and automated treasury management.

USDC’s growing market share means the stablecoin ecosystem is becoming more concentrated around a single issuer. If Circle were to face operational, regulatory, or reserve management issues, the blast radius would be significantly larger than it was even two years ago.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

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Alvarez & Marsal, a global restructuring advisory firm, has reportedly accepted its first client payment in USDC using the Solana blockchain, according to a social media post. This development marks a significant milestone for Solana, which has been gaining traction as a network for high-volume USDC transactions. Solana processes over 31% of global USDC transactions, and with fees averaging under $0.001, it is recognized for its speed and cost-efficiency. The move by Alvarez & Marsal could suggest increased institutional adoption of Solana for financial transactions.

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Key Takeaways The acceptance of USDC payments by Alvarez & Marsal on Solana appears to indicate growing institutional adoption of the network. Solana’s network processes a significant share of global USDC transactions, which may be viewed as supportive of increased network utility. Market participants might see this development as consistent with scenarios where Solana’s price could rise, although the source’s reliability as Tier 3 could moderate impacts. What to Watch Market observers should monitor whether other institutions follow Alvarez & Marsal’s lead in adopting Solana for USDC transactions, which could further influence market sentiment. Additionally, any announcements by major financial entities, such as Visa or Mastercard, regarding their use of Solana for settlements could impact the market. As the end of July approaches, the behavior of Solana’s price and transaction volumes will be critical indicators of the market’s response to this development.

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Term Structure

Contract Odds Δ since publish Volume 24h August 1 2026 30% — — View market → August 1 2026 0.7% — — View market → August 1 2026 0.1% — — View market → August 1 2026 4.2% — — View market → August 1 2026 1.8% — — View market → August 1 2026 0.8% — — View market → August 1 2026 10% — — View market → August 1 2026 1% — — View market → August 1 2026 15% — — View market → August 1 2026 0.2% — — View market → August 1 2026 2.8% — — View market → August 1 2026 0.1% — — View market →

Circle has reclaimed its top spot in the weekly decentralized exchange (DEX) trading volumes for tokenized stocks, reaching an impressive $32 million in transactions over the last seven days, according to CoinMarketCap Research. This marks a narrow victory over rival Micron, which finished the week with $30 million, putting the spotlight back on the competitive landscape of tokenized equities.

Circle leads the weekly rankingsFresh data shows Circle posting the highest weekly DEX volume among tokenized stock markets. While Circle secured the lead, Micron trailed close behind, and other major players such as Tesla, SpaceX, NVIDIA, and Strategy followed with volumes of $14 million, $13 million, $12 million, and $11 million respectively, signaling a vibrant yet compact market ecosystem.

CoinMarketCap Research points out that with $32 million in weekly DEX volume, Circle once again leads the tokenized stock space, narrowly edging past Micron’s $30 million in the same period.

A closer look at the data reveals that a significant portion of Micron’s tokenized trading activity is processed via the Ondo Finance infrastructure. This highlights the growing importance of tokenization platforms in facilitating the trade of digital securities and shaping market liquidity.

Glossary: A tokenized stock represents the digital version of a traditional share on the blockchain. DEX refers to decentralized exchanges where users can trade digital assets without the need for an intermediary broker.

Rising interest moves past initial hypeRecent figures suggest investor demand is extending beyond short-term enthusiasm following new product launches. SpaceX, for example, saw its weekly volume retreat from $35 million down to $13 million, while Circle’s steadier performance implies more sustained interest and possible maturation of the market.

Growth in tokenized financial products accelerates as blockchain market structures mature. This evolution offers quicker settlement, 24/7 trading access, and broader participation compared to traditional asset markets.

Institutional momentum and regulatory debates intensifyWith companies like Ondo Finance and Backed Finance ramping up their efforts to merge traditional finance with decentralized infrastructure, the landscape is increasingly shifting toward regulated digital asset platforms. This trend underscores a likely expansion in compliant tokenization solutions moving forward.

Weekly DEX volume spotlights where liquidity is concentrating within the tokenized equities ecosystem; strong trading activity helps boost market efficiency and drive down transactional costs, according to research notes.

Circle, in addition to its central role in tokenized stocks, is well known as the issuer of USDC, one of the world’s largest regulated stablecoins. The firm’s expanding involvement in decentralized finance, payment solutions, and the tokenization of real-world assets is rapidly reinforcing its industry influence.

Analysts now view stablecoin issuers not merely as payment facilitators, but as crucial components of financial infrastructure. As regulatory discussions continue in both the US and Europe, expectations are building that the next few months will see intensified competition between issuers, tokenization platforms, and blockchain networks.

Disclaimer: The information contained in this article does not constitute investment advice. Investors should be aware that cryptocurrencies carry high volatility and therefore risk, and should conduct their own research.

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AngelList will stop supporting crypto payments for investment funding at the end of July.

Summary

AngelList will pause crypto investment funding, pushing users toward ACH and wire transfer options. The change affects USDC, USDT, DAI, and ETH payments, but not existing investments. Ripple bought Rail for $200 million to expand enterprise stablecoin payments and global settlements. The venture platform said crypto funding will become unavailable from July 31, 2026, according to an AngelList help-center notice. The change affects payments made in USDC, USDT, DAI, and ETH.

AngelList said its third-party crypto payments provider is discontinuing the service. Users will need to use traditional payment routes for upcoming investments until the company restores or replaces crypto funding support.

The company said ACH and wire transfers will remain available. Domestic wires usually arrive within one to two business days, while international wires can take longer, according to AngelList’s payment guidance.

Rail partnership winds down The notice follows reports that AngelList is ending its relationship with Rail, the stablecoin payment company now operated by Ripple. AngelList said the change will not affect existing investments, account access, or portfolio data.

The platform also told users to switch to fiat payment methods before the July 31 deadline to avoid processing delays. That gives investors and fund managers a short window to move planned investment payments away from digital assets.

The move matters because AngelList serves a large base of startup investors, funds, and syndicates. Its decision shows that even high-profile tech and venture platforms may still rely on fiat rails when crypto support becomes harder to maintain.

Ripple bought Rail for payments push Ripple agreed to acquire Toronto-based Rail for $200 million in August 2025. Ripple said the deal would strengthen its stablecoin payments business and support enterprise-grade settlement.

Rail was built to help businesses move money using stablecoins without forcing them to manage crypto wallets or exchanges directly. The platform supported global payments across fiat currencies and stablecoins such as USDC and USDT.

Ripple later folded Rail into a broader payments strategy. Ripple has been building a larger institutional stack through acquisitions, including Rail for payments, Hidden Road for prime brokerage, and GTreasury for treasury management.

Fiat rails remain hard to replace The AngelList change does not mean enterprise stablecoin payments are failing. It does show that adoption depends on product fit, compliance needs, servicing, and user demand.

As previously reported by crypto.news, stablecoin payments have been gaining use in business banking, treasury, payroll, and cross-border settlement. These use cases often target back-office flows rather than public-facing investment checkout pages.

Ripple has also continued to expand around stablecoins. Ripple joined Open USD while keeping its own RLUSD stablecoin, giving it exposure to more than one payment network.

Not financial or tax advice. PANews content is strictly educational and informational and is not investment advice, financial advice, tax advice, legal advice, or a solicitation to buy or sell any digital asset, security, or financial product. Do your own research and consult qualified advisers.

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Not financial or tax advice. PANews content is strictly educational and informational and is not investment advice, financial advice, tax advice, legal advice, or a solicitation to buy or sell any digital asset, security, or financial product. Do your own research and consult qualified advisers.

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Binance Research releases stablecoin industry report: Platform stablecoin reserves hit $53 billion, market share rises to 57%

Binance Research has released an industry report titled "Stablecoins: Reshaping the Financial Landscape". The report shows that as of now, Binance’s stablecoin reserve on its platform has reached $53 billion, with its market share rising from 54% to 57%—about $420 billion higher than that of the second-largest crypto exchange. Meanwhile, in the first five months of 2026, cumulative trading volume of TradFi-related perpetual contracts exceeded $1.1 trillion, with Binance’s volume topping $500 billion and accounting for roughly 47% of the market share. Additionally, since 2022, Binance Earn has distributed a total of $1.2 billion in yields to over 14 million stablecoin users. BNB Chain sees 10 million daily stablecoin transactions and 15 million monthly active addresses, holding a roughly 24% market share by transaction volume. The report notes that stablecoins are evolving from a crypto asset trading tool to a critical settlement infrastructure for global finance, while Binance has built a one-stop stablecoin financial ecosystem covering trading, payments, yields, investments and on-chain ecosystems.

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The stablecoin market has quietly crossed $320 billion in total capitalization, but the real story isn’t the size. It’s the fracture. Dune Analytics data reveals that USDT and USDC, the two heavyweights of the dollar-pegged world, have evolved into fundamentally different products serving fundamentally different users.

Tether’s USDT commands over 59% market share with a supply between $184 billion and $197 billion. Circle’s USDC sits at roughly $73 billion to $75 billion. On raw supply alone, this looks like a blowout. But flip to transaction volumes and the picture inverts dramatically.

The volume paradox In January 2026, USDC processed $8.3 trillion in transfers. USDT handled $1.7 trillion. That’s nearly a five-to-one ratio, despite USDC having less than half the circulating supply.

The explanation lies in where each stablecoin lives. According to Dune’s data, 56% of all stablecoin transfer volume originates from DeFi liquidity pools. USDC has become the preferred settlement layer for decentralized exchanges, lending protocols, and automated market makers, particularly on faster networks like Layer-2 chains and Solana.

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Base chain, Coinbase’s Layer-2 network, led transfer volumes despite holding a relatively modest share of overall stablecoin supply. The chains optimized for speed and low fees are pulling USDC volume at disproportionate rates, suggesting that DeFi power users have made their preference clear.

USDT, meanwhile, has cemented itself as the payments rail of choice in emerging markets. Tron remains the primary hub for USDT activity, and the reason is straightforward: transaction fees on Tron are negligible.

Two stablecoins, two economies USDC has positioned itself as the institutional-grade stablecoin. Circle’s emphasis on transparency, regular attestations, and regulatory engagement has made it the default for firms that need to explain their treasury operations to compliance officers. Visa’s on-chain data for the first half of 2026 corroborates the growing volume trend, reinforcing that USDC’s velocity isn’t a fluke.

Ethereum still holds the largest stablecoin supply at approximately $176 billion. Stablecoin transfers exceeded $10 trillion in January 2026 alone. To put that in context, Visa’s entire global network processed roughly $14 trillion in the full year of 2023.

What this means for investors The US GENIUS Act and Europe’s MiCA framework are both designed to impose reserve requirements, disclosure standards, and licensing regimes on stablecoin issuers. Circle has spent years preparing for exactly this kind of regulatory future. Tether has spent years arguing it shouldn’t have to.

The 56% figure for DeFi-originated transfer volume is worth watching closely. If that number climbs, it suggests stablecoins are becoming even more deeply embedded in on-chain financial infrastructure rather than just serving as fiat on-ramps.

Traders should pay attention to which chains are gaining USDC supply share, as that metric increasingly functions as a proxy for institutional interest and DeFi activity migration.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

According to monitoring by OnchainLens, Circle has issued an additional 250 million USDC on the Solana blockchain. So far in 2026, Circle’s total USDC issuance on the Solana chain stands at $65.03 billion.

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Summary

USDC now dominates adjusted stablecoin volume, even though USDT still leads by market capitalization. The stablecoin market has split into a settlement layer led by USDC and a savings layer led by USDT. Banks and institutions are choosing compliant stablecoin rails instead of building proprietary tokens from scratch. Tether remains stronger in transaction count, emerging-market usage, and offshore dollar demand. The next major fight is over yield, distribution, and whether new consortium or native stablecoins can challenge USDC’s settlement moat. Crypto has spent years waiting for the flippening, the day one giant overtakes another and the market’s mental map has to be redrawn. It finally happened, and almost nobody framed it that way, because it happened in the wrong column of the spreadsheet.

By market capitalization, the column everyone quotes, nothing has changed: Tether’s USDT stands near $184 billion, Circle’s USDC near $73 billion, a gap so wide it reads as settled. But June’s data from Visa’s onchain analytics dashboard measured the other thing, the volume of stablecoin transactions that represent real economic activity, and the order inverted completely. Of a record $1.79 trillion in adjusted stablecoin volume in June, USDC carried about $1.21 trillion, a 67 percent share. USDT carried $573 billion. Across the first half of 2026, USDC’s share ran near 70 percent against roughly 25 percent for Tether, the widest gap ever recorded, in the largest half-year of stablecoin activity ever recorded: $8.82 trillion, more than all of 2024 combined.

Six years ago the same dashboard would have shown the mirror image. In 2020, USDT handled nearly 90 percent of adjusted volume and USDC less than 10. The reversal did not happen in one dramatic quarter; it compounded quietly through regulation, bank adoption, and a bifurcation of the stablecoin world into two markets that barely compete anymore. The supply crown and the volume crown now sit on different heads, and the split is not a paradox. It is the clearest single picture of what stablecoins have actually become.

This is the anatomy of the quiet flippening: what the adjusted numbers do and do not measure, how Circle won the settlement layer while Tether kept the savings layer, why the banks tipped it, and what each giant’s position is actually worth in the market taking shape.

USDC Surpasses USDT in Trading Volume

Since 2019, USDT has almost dominated the stablecoin market, only gradually overtaking it in 2026. This peaked in June, when USDC accounted for 68% of total trading volume, pushing USDT down to just 32%.

The impetus for USDC's rise comes… pic.twitter.com/le1iNdQtpe

— Aubrey Amanda (@AubreyAman_Web3) July 7, 2026 Three eras of the volume race The June data is a snapshot of a race that has run in three distinct eras, and the arc explains why the current gap is unlikely to be a fluke.

The first era, through roughly 2021, was total Tether dominance by every measure. USDT was the dollar of crypto trading, the default quote pair on every offshore venue, and adjusted volume tracked that role: nearly 90 percent share in 2020, against a single-digit USDC. Circle’s token was a compliance curiosity, held mostly by American funds that needed an auditable dollar.

The second era, 2022 through 2024, was the slow crossover. USDC’s adjusted share reached about 45 percent by 2022 as DeFi standardized on it and American institutions began moving real size. The era included USDC’s near-death experience, the 2023 depeg during the regional banking crisis, which cost it supply and reputation, and yet the volume trend barely bent, because the institutional workflows kept building. By early 2025 the dashboards recorded the first clean monthly flips, USDC’s adjusted volume exceeding Tether’s for the first time since 2019, an event Wall Street noticed before crypto did; equity analysts raised Circle targets on the data while crypto media filed it under statistics.

The third era is the one the June numbers describe: not flipping but separation. In February 2026, stablecoin volume set what was then a record near $1.8 trillion, with USDC around $1.26 trillion against roughly $514 billion for USDT, and observers noted the flip had become consistent, month after month, whatever the market regime. June widened it further. Three eras, one direction, across bull markets, bear markets, a depeg, and an IPO: the volume race stopped being a race some time ago, and the market is only now updating its mental model to match its own data.

What adjusted volume actually measures Raw blockchain volume is one of the most gameable numbers in finance. Tokens bouncing between an exchange’s own wallets, bot loops, and consolidation transfers can inflate throughput arbitrarily, which is why raw stablecoin figures in the tens of trillions have always deserved suspicion. Visa’s dashboard, built with analytics firm Allium, exists to strip that noise: it filters out exchange-internal transfers, bot-driven activity, and other non-economic movement to approximate the volume that represents someone actually paying, settling, or moving money.

By that filtered measure, June was a landmark month twice over. The $1.79 trillion total was an all-time record, up 63 percent from May’s $1.1 trillion and 125 percent from roughly $795 billion in June 2025, growth that coincides with banks and corporates adopting stablecoin settlement at scale. And the composition was unambiguous: roughly two of every three adjusted dollars moved through USDC.

One number in Tether’s favor deserves equal prominence, because it explains everything else in this story. USDT processed 145 million transactions in June against USDC’s 57 million. Tether moves far more transactions; Circle moves far more money. The average economic USDT transfer is small, the average USDC transfer is enormous, and that single contrast contains the entire structure of the modern stablecoin market: one token is used by tens of millions of people, the other is used by institutions moving size.

The methodology deserves its caveats. Adjusted volume is an inference, filters embed judgment calls, and Visa has been a Circle partner since 2020, a relationship critics note when the dashboard flatters USDC. But the trend is corroborated across independent trackers, has run consistently since USDC volumes first flipped Tether’s in early 2025, and has widened every quarter since. Whatever the error bars, the direction is not in dispute, and no serious competing dataset tells a different story about where the economic flow now lives.

How Circle won the money-movement layer USDC’s volume dominance was built deliberately, over years, on a single strategic premise: the durable stablecoin business is not trading chips, it is regulated settlement, and regulated settlement goes to whoever institutions are allowed to touch.

Every major Circle decision traces to that premise. Reserves in T-bills and cash at named institutions with monthly attestations. American regulatory posture through the GENIUS Act era. MiCA compliance in Europe while Tether refused the framework’s reserve rules and watched itself forced out of the regulated European market. The result is a token that a compliance department can approve, and in 2026 the compliance departments arrived: Standard Chartered became the first global systemically important bank to offer USDC minting and redemption through ordinary banking infrastructure, and BNY, the largest custodian on earth with some $59 trillion under administration, made USDC the first stablecoin on its digital asset custody platform. Neither built a proprietary coin. Both plugged into Circle’s network, a pattern that says the standards war for institutional dollar settlement is being won by adoption rather than announcement.

That is the flywheel behind the 70 percent: banks settling with each other, corporates managing treasury, funds moving collateral, payment firms clearing cross-border flow, all in large denominations, all in the token their regulators recognize. Circle’s chief executive has said the company even routes its own internal treasury transfers through USDC, which is the kind of detail that sounds like marketing until the volume data makes it representative.

The bank adoptions carry a structural signal beyond their volumes. When a systemically important bank offers minting and redemption through its own infrastructure, it is wiring a private token into the regulated payment system at the layer where finality lives, and when the largest custodian on earth holds that token for clients, the token acquires the operational trappings of a settlement asset: audited custody, insurance frameworks, regulatory reporting. Each integration also deepens the moat in a way rivals cannot shortcut, because bank onboarding is measured in years of diligence, and a consortium or challenger coin starts that clock from zero. The eighteen months of institutional plumbing now wrapped around USDC may prove more durable than any single quarter’s market share, and it is the part of Circle’s position that the OUSD launch, whatever its partner roster, cannot copy by press release.

The victory has an asterisk the market spent late June pricing: winning the settlement layer as a single company invited the settlement layer to organize against you. The Open USD consortium, the 140-partner shared-issuance model whose launch reads as Circle’s own partners building its replacement, knocked Circle’s stock to its worst day since March and drew a bearish Jefferies note warning that OUSD could erode exactly the institutional franchise the Visa data celebrates. The stock recovered within days, helped by ARK buying $17.8 million of shares into the dip and by growing doubts about how committed those 140 partners actually are, but the strategic point stands. USDC proved the institutional stablecoin market exists; proving it belongs to one issuer is a separate fight, and it has only started.

The regulation that drew the map The two-market structure did not emerge from consumer preference alone. It was drawn, border by border, by the two major stablecoin frameworks of the decade, and reading the volume data without the legal map underneath misses half the causation.

Europe’s MiCA regime was the first sorting machine. Its reserve composition rules, requiring a heavy share of reserves in bank deposits, were terms Circle accepted and Tether publicly refused, and the consequence rolled through 2025 and 2026 as an orderly expulsion: exchange after exchange delisting USDT for European customers, the retirement of Tether’s own euro token, and USDC inheriting the regulated continent largely by walkover. Every institutional euro that touches dollar stablecoins now flows through the compliant channel by law, not choice, and the June volume data includes that annexation.

America’s GENIUS Act performed the same sort with different tools. By defining the licensed payment stablecoin and its reserve, attestation, and redemption duties, it converted regulatory risk into a checklist that Circle had spent years pre-clearing, and it gave every American bank, custodian, and public company a statutory answer to the only question their lawyers ask: which token are we allowed to touch? The Standard Chartered and BNY integrations are downstream of that answer. Tether, structurally offshore and strategically unlicensed in the American sense, retains full access to the markets where those questions are not asked, which is to say the markets where its 145 million monthly transfers live.

The map explains the truce better than any competitive theory. Circle cannot chase Tether’s corridors without shedding the compliance identity its volumes depend on; Tether cannot chase Circle’s institutions without accepting the rulebooks it has made a brand of refusing. Each token is fenced into its dominance by the same laws that produced it, and the fences are the strongest force holding the two-market world in place. They are also, of course, laws, and laws change, which is why every scenario that breaks the truce runs through a legislature before it runs through a market.

Why Tether is not losing, exactly Read carelessly, a collapse from 90 percent of volume to 25 looks like decline. Tether’s financials say otherwise, and the difference is the most instructive part of the story.

Tether’s franchise was never institutional settlement. It is the dollar itself, delivered to people and businesses whose banks cannot or will not provide one: savers in weak-currency economies, merchants in cross-border trade, the entire emerging-market retail layer for which a dollar balance on a phone is the product and yield or compliance are afterthoughts. That business shows up in the data exactly where it should, in the 145 million transactions, in dominance of offshore trading pairs, in a supply base near $184 billion that keeps growing, and in the roughly four cents of Treasury yield the issuer keeps on every one of those dollars. Measured by profit per employee, Tether remains arguably the most successful financial company ever built, and none of that is dented by losing volume share in a market segment it never seriously contested.

The strategic retreats are real, but they are choices, consistent to the point of stubbornness. Tether refused MiCA’s reserve composition rules and ceded regulated Europe; it has kept its distance from the American framework’s constraints; it has diversified into gold, Bitcoin infrastructure, and payment rails for markets the compliant system ignores. The pattern is a bet that the offshore dollar economy is larger, stickier, and more defensible than the onshore settlement business, and that being the de facto savings instrument of the non-banked world beats competing with banks for the privilege of serving banks.

What the volume data reveals is not Tether losing a war but both sides declining to fight one. The two largest stablecoins now operate in barely overlapping markets: USDC is becoming the interbank dollar of crypto-adjacent finance, USDT the eurodollar of the global South. Each dominates where the other barely shows up. The single number that used to describe this industry, market cap share, has quietly stopped describing anything at all.

The transaction-count asymmetry is the human version of the same fact. One hundred forty-five million USDT transfers in a month is not an institutional statistic; it is a behavioral one, tens of millions of small remittances, merchant payments, and savings top-ups, the texture of a population using a dollar it was never issued. Averaged out, the typical economic USDT transfer runs in the thousands of dollars while the typical USDC transfer runs above twenty thousand, and no strategy deck could draw the two customer bases more clearly than that single ratio does.

Why supply and volume disagree The apparent paradox at the center of this story, the smaller token moving more than double the money, dissolves once the two metrics are read as measuring different economic facts.

Market capitalization measures parked dollars: every token in existence, wherever it sits, however long it sits there. Tether’s $184 billion is, in large part, savings, dollar balances held by people and businesses as a store of value, in wallets that may not transact for months. Savings are sticky and enormous, and they are the correct thing for supply to measure. Adjusted volume measures working dollars: balances that exist to move, settling trades, clearing invoices, rotating treasury. A settlement dollar can turn over dozens of times in the period a savings dollar turns over once, which is how $73 billion of USDC generates twice the economic flow of $184 billion of USDT. The ratio between the two metrics is effectively a velocity gauge, and it says USDC circulates at many times Tether’s speed.

Velocity is also why the flippening arrived silently. Supply is the vanity metric of stablecoins, easy to chart and emotionally legible, and by supply nothing dramatic ever happened. But payments businesses are valued on flow, not float parked elsewhere, and by flow the market share shift of the past three years is among the largest in the industry’s history. The week of the June data made the disconnect explicit: USDC’s supply actually slipped, from $73.75 billion to under $73 billion as some capital rotated after the OUSD consortium launch, in the very stretch its volume set records. A token can lose parked dollars and gain working ones simultaneously, and which loss or gain matters depends entirely on which business you think stablecoins are in.

The purpose-built infrastructure follows the same split. The new generation of payment-first stablechains is being designed around velocity, throughput and settlement finality for working dollars, while Tether’s ecosystem investments lean toward reach, rails that put savings dollars in more hands. Each giant is building for the metric it already wins, which is the strongest evidence that both understand exactly what the June data means.

JUST IN: Circle reports Q1 revenue and reserve income of $694m, USDC circulation at $77B, and $21.5T onchain transaction volume pic.twitter.com/2Z2z35ZfTy

— crypto.news (@cryptodotnews) May 12, 2026 The stakes hiding in the split The bifurcation is stable today. Three forces could break it, and each is worth watching precisely because the two-market truce depends on none of them firing.

The first is the yield question. Every adjusted dollar of volume runs on float that earns Treasury rates for issuers, and the war between banks and crypto over who keeps that yield is the live legislative fight of the summer. A world of legal yield pass-through re-opens every settled position: banks issue in earnest, consortium models gain their reason to exist, and the institutional volumes now concentrated in USDC become the most contested flow in finance, because they are the cheapest deposits anyone has ever gathered. Circle’s 70 percent is, among other things, the largest pile of other people’s interest income in the industry, and everyone can see it.

The velocity split makes the yield math stranger than either side’s talking points. Float income accrues on parked dollars, not moving ones, which means Tether’s savings-heavy $184 billion is a better yield engine per token than Circle’s fast-turning $73 billion, and the volume champion earns less on its franchise than the volume laggard earns on its own. Circle’s answer has been to monetize flow itself, payment services, settlement products, network fees, the classic evolution from float business to payments business, while Tether can simply sit on the world’s most profitable savings account. If yield pass-through ever becomes legal, the pressure lands asymmetrically: savings dollars will chase whoever pays, while settlement dollars care about integration and finality more than basis points. The two-market split, in other words, would survive even the fight that everyone assumes redraws the map.

The second is convergence from below. Tether’s retail fortress assumes the compliant system keeps ignoring its markets. The wave of branded and regional settlement coins, bank consortium tokens, and payment-first chains suggests the opposite trajectory, an organized effort to bring regulated digital dollars to precisely the corridors USDT owns. Tether’s distribution advantages there are enormous and its rivals’ record so far is thin, but the moat is regulatory abstention, and abstention is a policy that changes.

The third is a stress event. The volume crown makes USDC systemically important in a way market cap never did: it is now plumbing for banks, custodians, and corporate treasuries, and plumbing gets tested. USDC has depegged before, in the 2023 banking crisis, and survived on transparency and a government backstop of its banking partners. The next test arrives with far more institutional weight on the rails, and how it resolves will do more than any dashboard to decide whether the compliant stablecoin experiment keeps compounding. Tether faces the mirror-image test: its stress scenario is not a depeg but a designation, an enforcement or policy shock in one of its core corridors, and its resilience rests on exactly the opacity that would make such a shock hard to price. Two franchises, two failure modes, and neither has been examined at current scale.

Two crowns, one lesson The quiet flippening will not produce a settled winner, because it did not describe a contest. It described a divergence: the stablecoin market pulled apart into a settlement layer and a savings layer, and each layer chose its champion according to its own logic. Institutions chose the token their rules allow; the unbanked chose the token their reality delivers. Volume went one way, supply the other, and both charts are telling the truth. The error was ever expecting one instrument to serve both masters, when no version of the analog dollar ever has either.

The lesson is for everyone still fighting the last war. For years the industry treated stablecoins as a single throne with USDT sitting on it and challengers queuing. The 2026 data retires the metaphor. There are at least two thrones, probably more as the payment chains and consortium coins carve their own niches, and the interesting competition is no longer between Tether and Circle but at each throne’s edges: OUSD and the banks pressing on Circle’s settlement franchise, regulated regional coins pressing on Tether’s corridors, and the yield fight in Washington threatening to redraw the whole map.

The largest half-year in stablecoin history ended with the crown split and the market bigger than ever, which suggests the split is not a problem to be resolved but the structure of the industry from here. Somewhere in the $8.82 trillion is the answer to the question that actually matters, and it is not which token wins. It is that the dollars have already moved onchain, in size, through whichever door each holder was allowed to use, and neither crown fits back in the old box. The next dashboard update will move the shares a point or two in one direction or another, and it will not matter. The structure is the story now, and the structure is two markets, two dollars, and no single throne left to fight over.

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. Digital asset markets are volatile and you can lose your entire investment. Always do your own research. Information current as of July 7, 2026.