Track market-moving stories before they get noisy

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.

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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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.

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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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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Tether is still the biggest stablecoin on earth by the measure everyone quotes. By the measure that tracks actual money movement, the race is over and Circle won it: USDC now carries roughly 70 percent of adjusted stablecoin volume, more than double USDT, powered by banks that chose a compliant token over building their own. Inside the two-stablecoin world that just became official.

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.

Getting a smart contract audited has traditionally been one of crypto’s most expensive chores. Professional security firms charge tens of thousands of dollars, sometimes six figures, for a thorough review. Austin Griffith, a well-known Ethereum Foundation developer, just dropped the price to a single dollar.

The service, called “the one dollar audit,” went live on July 7 at onedollaraudit.com. For $1 USDC, developers can submit a smart contract and receive an AI-powered security review. Payments flow through the x402 protocol, and the resulting audit reports are recorded onchain using the ERC-8004 standard.

How the pieces fit together First, there’s the AI audit itself. Instead of a team of human auditors spending weeks combing through Solidity code, an AI model analyzes the smart contract and flags potential vulnerabilities. It won’t replace a full manual audit from a top-tier firm, but as a first pass? For a dollar? That changes the calculus for every solo developer shipping a weekend project.

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Second, there’s x402. This is a protocol designed to facilitate microtransactions between software agents. The name riffs on HTTP status code 402 (“Payment Required”), which was originally reserved for digital payments but never widely implemented. In this context, x402 allows the payment to happen natively as part of the request itself. No checkout page, no invoice, no waiting. A developer (or another AI agent) sends a dollar and gets a review back.

Third, there’s ERC-8004. This standard focuses on establishing onchain identity and reputation for AI agents. By recording each audit review using ERC-8004, every assessment becomes a permanent, verifiable record on Ethereum. Over time, this creates a trust layer: you can look at a contract and see whether it was reviewed, what was found, and by which agent.

Why this matters beyond the price tag By collapsing the cost to $1, security reviews become feasible for hobby projects, hackathon prototypes, and early-stage contracts that would never justify a traditional audit budget. It doesn’t eliminate the need for comprehensive human-led audits on high-value protocols, but it dramatically lowers the floor for baseline security checks.

The community response has been largely enthusiastic. Jesse Pollak, a prominent figure in the Ethereum ecosystem, highlighted the service’s innovative approach. Some users, however, raised a practical concern: the audit results are publicly visible on the site. For developers working on unannounced projects, having vulnerabilities listed in public before they’re fixed is suboptimal. There have been calls for a private review option.

What this means for investors An AI audit is not equivalent to a manual audit by Trail of Bits or OpenZeppelin. If developers treat a $1 AI review as a substitute for rigorous security analysis on high-value contracts, the consequences could be severe. The service is best understood as a screening tool, not a certification. Investors evaluating protocols should ask whether projects relied solely on automated reviews or complemented them with deeper assessments.

Griffith’s track record gives the project credibility. He’s contributed to Ethereum’s educational infrastructure and has been directly involved in developing both ERC-8004 and x402. In August 2025, he proposed ERC-8004, a standard encompassing an onchain identity model based on ERC-721, mechanisms for reputation registries, and validation processes designed to improve trust in agent interactions.

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

The world’s biggest stablecoins are increasingly becoming chain-specific financial products, with Tether’s USDt (USDT) and Circle’s USDC (USDC) serving distinct roles across the crypto ecosystem rather than competing head-on.

Dune’s Digital Asset Brief found that USDT overwhelmingly dominates onchain payments. During the first half of 2026, the biggest stablecoin settled about $95 billion in identified commerce payments, compared with $14 billion for second-biggest USDC. It also accounted for roughly 92% of the $48 billion in business-to-business payment volume. On Tron, USDT’s largest network, around 93% of the token’s supply is held in ordinary wallets rather than on exchanges, underscoring its role as a payment and remittance asset.

USDC, meanwhile, has established itself as the dominant stablecoin in decentralized finance. USDC on Base processed roughly $2.6 trillion in transfer volume in June, the highest of any token-chain pair, while on Ethereum, that stablecoin handled another $1.6 trillion. 

USDC on Base recorded daily velocity of about 20 times its circulating supply in June, reflecting its extensive use in trading and DeFi. Source: Dune

The findings suggest the traditional USDT-versus-USDC narrative is becoming less useful. Instead, each stablecoin is carving out its own niche, with USDT dominating payments and USDC underpinning much of crypto’s trading and DeFi activity.

USDT’s supply is split almost evenly between Tron and Ethereum, while USDC remains heavily concentrated on Ethereum despite expanding to newer blockchains. Source: Dune

The findings come as the two digital assets continue to dominate the stablecoin market. Together, they account for roughly 83% of the sector’s approximately $315 billion market capitalization, according to Dune, which tracked more than 200 stablecoin tokens across multiple blockchains.

US lawmakers reshape stablecoin rulesThe stablecoin sector has gained momentum in the United States following the passage of the GENIUS Act. Signed into law in 2025, GENIUS established the first federal regulatory framework for payment stablecoins, paving the way for banks and other companies to issue US dollar-pegged digital assets.

Lawmakers are now debating the CLARITY Act, which would establish a broader market structure for digital assets by defining when crypto assets fall under the jurisdiction of the US Securities and Exchange Commission or the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission. While the bill does not regulate stablecoins directly, it would shape the broader regulatory environment in which stablecoin issuers, exchanges and DeFi platforms operate.

CLARITY cleared the Senate Banking Committee in May and could receive a full Senate vote before the August recess, although Galaxy recently trimmed its odds of passage before the break to 50% as lawmakers run short on time.

Magazine: Kraken’s $600M stablecoin firm, Huione scandal deepens: Asia Express

Cointelegraph is committed to independent, transparent journalism. This news article is produced in accordance with Cointelegraph’s Editorial Policy and aims to provide accurate and timely information. Readers are encouraged to verify information independently.

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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Source: Binance EN

This is a general informational announcement and is not a promotion. Products and services referred to here may not be available in your region. Terms and conditions apply. Fellow Binancians, Binance introduces the Binance FPSL (Fully Paid Securities Lending) HODL Leaderboard for Stocks users. Eligible participants can earn up to 388 USDC in rewards based on their leaderboard ranking. Activity Period: 2026-07-06 12:00 (UTC) to 2026-08-02 23:59 (UTC) Explore Now Eligibility: All users who successfully enabled the FPSL (Fully Paid Securities Lending) function and opted-in to the Activity are eligible. Eligible assets: U.S.-listed stocks and ETFs on Binance that are fully settled (T+1 trading day). How to Participate: Step 1: Visit the landing page and opt-in by clicking the [Join Now] button. Step 2: Turn on the FPSL (Fully Paid Securities Lending) function for your stocks holdings. Step 3: HODL your stocks while your FPSL is on. The more stocks you lent successfully and the longer the duration, the higher your rank. Note: Alpaca will automatically lend the shares based on market demand from your account after you turn on FPSL and will not notify you in advance. Reward Structure: Eligible Users’ Rankings Based onTheir Stock Holdings * Number of Days FPSL EnabledDistribution per Eligible User (in Token Vouchers)1st Place388 USDC2nd - 3rd Places188 USDC4th - 5th Places88 USDC6th - 10th Places68 USDC11th - 20th Places28 USDC21st - 50th Places18 USDC51st - 100th Places8 USDC Important Notes: Rankings are not updated in real time. It is calculated and refreshed daily on a T+1 basis based on the number of days FPSL is enabled * the user’s stock holdings while the FPSL function is enabled.The Fully Paid Securities Lending Program allows the institutional borrower to borrow eligible assets from eligible users’ stocks holdings under their Binance account. Interest will be credited to eligible users’ accounts every month when the eligible assets are lent out.Alpaca will automatically lend the shares based on market demand from eligible users’ accounts once they enable the FPSL function. Users will not be notified in advance.The daily interest is calculated based on the market value of the user’s loaned shares, the annualized lending rate (determined by market demand), and their share of the gross lending fee. Stocks in high demand for short selling typically earn higher rates.Formula (simplified):Interest = Market Value of Loaned Shares * Annualized Lending Rate * User’s Share % / 365 * Days on LoanLending eligible assets will not affect any of the user’s trading activities. Users can still sell the eligible assets at any time. When the user sells a stock that is currently on loan, the loan is automatically recalled. Interest stops accruing from the time of sale. However, the leaderboard will be based on the user’s stocks AUM, and their ranking may be affected after that. Terms and Conditions: During the Activity Period, the terms and conditions below terms (“Discount Terms”) apply in addition to the following: (a) Binance Terms of Use; (b) Binance Privacy Notice; and (c) Securities Trading Product Terms. all of which are incorporated by reference into these terms and conditions. In the case of any inconsistency or conflict between these Activity Terms, and any other incorporated terms, the provisions of these Activity 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.Users must confirm their participation and enable the FPSL function for their stocks during the Activity Period to be eligible for rewards.Distributions are limited to the top 100 eligible users ranked by the number of days FPSL is enabled * Stocks holdings while the FPSL function is enabled during the Activity Period, subject to Binance’s final verification.Rankings are updated daily (T+1). Data delays, system adjustments, cancellations, reversals, failed lending events, or other anomalies may impact displayed rankings and final results.Distribution:All USDC token vouchers will be distributed to eligible users by 2026-08-20.Users will be able to login and redeem their token voucher via Profile > Rewards Hub. All token vouchers will expire within 21 days after distribution. Eligible users should claim their vouchers before the expiration date, and no replacement will be provided. Learn how to redeem a Binance voucher.Please note that the actual value received by a user is subject to change due to market fluctuation.Final results are not negotiable nor transferable.Once the available distribution for the FPSL (Fully Paid Securities Lending) HODL Leaderboard has been allocated to users, no further distribution will be provided notwithstanding that an eligible user may have eligible stocks holdings.A user’s stocks holdings in this Stocks HODL Leaderboard will be calculated only after the user has opted-in. Binance reserves the right to disqualify a user’s eligibility if the account is involved in any dishonest behavior (e.g., wash trading, illegally bulk account registrations/logins, self dealing, or market manipulation). Binance further reserves the right to disqualify any participants who tamper with Binance program code, or interfere with the operation of Binance program code with other software.Binance reserves the right at any time in its sole and absolute discretion to determine and/or amend or vary these terms and conditions without prior notice, including but not limited to canceling, extending, terminating, or suspending these activities, the eligibility terms and criteria, the selection and number of reward recipients, and the timing of any act to be done, and all participants shall be bound by these amendments.There may be discrepancies between this original content in English and any translated versions. Please refer to the original English version for the most accurate information, in case any discrepancies arise. Thank you for your support! Binance Team 2026-07-07 Disclaimer: Nest Trading Limited acts as your introducing broker and routes your orders for Securities to its clearing broker partner, Alpaca Securities LLC, for execution, clearing, settlement and custody. Binance does not handle or custody your Securities. Securities are subject to high market and liquidity risk and price volatility (particularly outside traditional market hours). The value of your investment may go down or up and you may not get back the amount invested. You are solely responsible for your investment decisions and Binance is not liable for any losses you may incur. Past performance is not a reliable predictor of future performance. Before trading, you should make an independent assessment of the appropriateness of the transaction in light of your own objectives and circumstances, including the risks and potential benefits. Consult your own advisers, where appropriate. This information should not be construed as financial or investment advice. Binance may receive payment for order flow remuneration for directing your orders. To learn more about how to protect yourself, visit our Responsible Trading page. For more information, see our Terms of Use, Securities Trading Product Terms and Risk Warning. Binance ADGM entities are regulated by the Financial Services Regulatory Authority (FSRA) of the Abu Dhabi Global Markets (ADGM) as follows: (1) Nest Exchange Limited is recognised as a Recognised Investment Exchange (Derivatives), with a stipulation to Operate a Multilateral Trading Facility; (2) Nest Clearing and Custody Limited is recognised as a Recognised Clearing House, with a stipulation to Provide Custody and operating a Central Securities Depository; (3) Nest Trading Limited is authorised to carry out the following Regulated Activities: (i) Dealing in Investments as Principal; (ii) Dealing in Investments as Agent; (iii) Arranging Deals in Investments; (iv) Managing Assets; (v) Providing Money Services; and (vi) Arranging Custody.

Morningstar: Samsung Electronics' revenue expectations may disappoint investors.

Morningstar analyst Jing Jie Yu said investors may feel somewhat disappointed with Samsung Electronics' revenue outlook. He noted that the company’s projected operating profit is in line with market expectations, but its revenue forecast of 171 trillion won is slightly below the consensus. This underperformance is likely due to DRAM price increases falling short of expectations, which may have spooked investors who were increasingly betting on a structural rally in memory chip prices. As investors grew more cautious, Samsung Electronics’ stock closed down 6.9%, trimming its year-to-date gain to just under 150%.

2 minutes ago

Citi assigns SpaceX a "Buy" rating, with a target price of $200.

Citigroup initiates coverage on SpaceX (SPCX.O), assigning a Buy rating and setting a target price of $200.

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He Yi: Binance Earn has cumulatively distributed over $1.2 billion in yields to stablecoin holders.

Binance co-founder He Yi stated in a social media post that "A key metric I’ve long focused on is the value created for users. Since 2022, Binance Earn has cumulatively distributed over $1.2 billion in yields to stablecoin holders. In the long run, the real opportunity lies not only in providing users with market access, but also in helping them continuously generate value from their assets."

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Strive CEO: No need to sell the company's reserve Bitcoin holdings even if Bitcoin falls to 1 cent.

Strive CEO Matt Cole said in an interview that even if Bitcoin falls to 1 cent and remains at that level for 18 months, Strive will face no issues, does not need to take any action, and will not have to sell a single BTC. No price level will trigger a forced liquidation for Strive.

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US stock storage sector is generally down in pre-market trading, with Western Digital falling more than 6%.

According to BIT (bit.com) market data, the US stock market's storage sector is seeing broad pre-market declines, with Seagate Technology (STX) down 4.96%, Western Digital (WDC) down 6.14%, SanDisk (SNDK) down 5.43%, and Micron Technology (MU) down 5.46%.

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Nansen has integrated Hyperliquid perpetual contract trading, supporting smart money and on-chain data analysis.

According to official announcements, blockchain analytics platform Nansen has officially launched Hyperliquid Perpetual (Perp) trading functionality, now available to all web and mobile users. Users can execute Hyperliquid perpetual trades directly within Nansen while tracking on-chain activities of Smart Money, whale addresses, and prominent investors, with real-time access to key metrics including funding rates, long-short position ratios, and wallet-level position distributions—enabling an integrated "research-to-trade" experience. Nansen added that the platform has also launched the Hyperliquid Perps Leaderboard, which supports filtering by Smart Money, whales, and top traders, and sorting by performance over the past 7 days, 30 days, or all-time, helping users quickly identify top-performing wallet addresses. Additionally, users can deposit funds from external wallets within the app, bridge assets from connected Solana or Base wallets to Hyperliquid, and receive asset transfers directly from other Hyperliquid addresses. Beyond trading features, Nansen has expanded its data coverage of the Hyperliquid ecosystem, including on-chain activity monitoring for HyperFND and the Hyperliquid Data API. Users can track real-time active HyperEVM addresses, contract deployments, and ecosystem growth, while development teams can access real-time Smart Money perpetual positions, unrealized profit and loss (PnL), account health, full transaction history, and performance data via the API—supporting quantitative analysis, strategy development, and application building.

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Source: Binance EN

This is a general announcement and marketing communication. Products and services referred to here may not be available in your region. Terms and conditions apply. Fellow Binancians, Binance Earn is excited to renew the campaign for the USDC Simple Earn Flexible Products! During the Promotion Period, users who subscribe to USDC Flexible Products may enjoy up to 7% APR, which includes an exclusive Bonus Tiered APR on top of Real-Time APR rewards. How to Participate Promotion Period: 2026-07-08 00:00:00 (UTC) to 2026-07-31 23:59:59 (UTC)Subscription Format: Complete subscription on a first-come, first-served basis in accordance with the terms below.Rewards Distribution:Bonus Tiered APR: Distributed to users’ Spot Accounts on a daily basis. The first reward will be given the day after accrual starts (two days after subscription).Real-Time APR: Accrued and directly accumulated in users’ Earn Accounts every minute. Offered Products Digital AssetDurationAPR During Promotion PeriodMin. Subscription Limit per UserMax. Subscription Limit per UserTier Range: Subscription Amount ≤ 200 USDCTier Range: Subscription Amount > 200 USDCUSDCFlexible7%(including 5% Bonus Tiered APR and approximately 2% Real-Time APR)2%(Approximately 2% Real-Time APR)0.01 USDC300,000,000 USDC How to Get Started with USDC Flexible Products: Users can buy USDC on the Buy Crypto page, which supports local and international payment methods including Visa and Mastercard cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay, account balances and SWIFT Bank Transfer (corporate user exclusive). Users can also deposit USDC to their Binance account. Head to [Simple Earn], and search for USDC. Select FLEXIBLE, and subscribe to USDC Simple Earn Flexible Products to start earning exclusive APR Rewards! Start Earning Now! Terms & Conditions: These terms and conditions (“Activity Terms”) govern users’ participation in the activity above (“Activity”). By participating in this Activity, users agree to these Activity 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 Activity Terms, and any other incorporated terms, the provisions of these Activity 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 Promotion Period can qualify for rewards in the Promotion, and only master accounts qualify for rewards in the Promotion. Sub-accounts are not eligible to receive rewards. The products or features referred to above may not be available in your region. 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.Changes to the Binance Simple Earn Rewards Rate will be published on the Platform from time to time. Please refer to Binance Simple Earn Terms & Conditions and Risk Warning for more information prior to using Binance Simple Earn. Rewards:Real-Time APR is subject to change every minute, please refer to the respective product page(s) for accurate information. Real-Time APR rewards are accrued and directly accumulated in users’ Earn Accounts every minute.Bonus Tiered APR is offered as an additional reward on top of Real-Time APR. Upon subscription, Bonus Tiered APR rewards start to accrue the next day starting from 00:00 (UTC) based on the snapshot of your subscribed amounts to the Flexible Product of the day, which will be taken randomly between 00:00:00 to 23:59:59 (UTC) daily. Rewards will start to be distributed the following day after accrual starts between 00:00 (UTC) and 08:00 (UTC) to the user’s Spot Account.Any redemption of Flexible Products made between 00:00:00 (UTC) and 00:00:00 (UTC) of the following day will stop the accrual of Bonus Tiered APR rewards on the redeemed amount for that day.Redemptions of Flexible Products will be processed starting with assets that have accrued rewards. Users can check the rewards history from the Earn History. Bonus Tiered APR rewards are calculated based on the subscribed amounts and are subject to the respective tier limit for each token. Please refer to the FAQ for more details.All users who hold open positions for USDC Flexible Products will receive both Real-Time APR and Bonus Tiered APR rewards during the Promotion Period. Once the Promotion ends, users will be entitled to Real-Time APR rewards only. APR rewards are distributed from Binance’s own funds, and are determined based on the assessment and evaluation of prevailing market conditions. The Activity's subscription amount of each user has an upper limit. When the upper limit is reached, users will no longer be able to subscribe.A large amount of redemption requests might delay redemption temporarily. Redemptions may resume upon return of liquidity.Users can view their Flexible Products assets by going to Assets > Earn > Simple Earn.Redemption time for Flexible Products subscriptions: Instant. Binance reserves the right to disqualify a user’s reward eligibility if the account is involved in any dishonest behavior (e.g., wash trading, illegally bulk account registrations/logins, self dealing, or market manipulation). Binance further reserves the right to disqualify any participants who tamper with Binance program code, or interfere with the operation of Binance program code with other software.Binance reserves the right at any time in its sole and absolute discretion to determine and/or amend or vary these terms and conditions without prior notice, including but not limited to canceling, extending, terminating or suspending this Promotion, the eligibility terms and criteria, the selection and number of winners, and the timing of any act to be done, and all Participants shall be bound by these amendments. There may be discrepancies between this original content in English and any translated versions. Please refer to the original English version for the most accurate information, in case any discrepancies arise. Thank you for your support! Binance Team 2026-07-07 USDC is an e-money token issued by Circle Internet Financial Europe SAS (https://www.circle.com/). USDC’s whitepaper is available here. You may contact Circle using the following contact information: +33(1)59000130 and [email protected]. Holders of USDC have a legal claim against Circle SAS as the EU issuer of USDC. These holders are entitled to request redemption of their USDC from Circle SAS. Such redemption will be made at any time and at par value.

Jul 6, 2026, 4:00 p.m.

1 min read

Visa stablecoin data shows fiat-pegged token monthly activity increased to a record $1.79 trillion in June. ((Media/Visa)Summary

Circle’s USDC accounted for about 70 percent of adjusted stablecoin transaction volume in the first half of 2026, widening its lead over Tether’s USDT, which held roughly 25 percent.Adjusted stablecoin transaction volume hit a record $1.79 trillion in June 2026, up 63 percent from May and 125 percent from June 2025, contributing to $8.82 trillion in volume for the first six months of the year.Growing adoption of stablecoins by banks and financial institutions, including new USDC services from Standard Chartered and BNY, reflects a broader shift toward established fiat-pegged digital asset networks.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.

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’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.

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.

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Building the Zcash Machine: Tachyon and Quantum Readiness

Building the Zcash Machine: Tachyon and Quantum Readiness

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

Jun 30, 2026

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.

Bitcoin ETFs Just Snapped a Weeks-Long Slump, But Will It Last?

Table of contents

Summer Finance, a renowned DeFi platform, has recently undergone a significant exploit. In this respect, the Summer.fi exploiter has reportedly drained a staggering $6M in $DAI. As per the data from PeckShieldAlert, the incident majorly influenced the LazyVault LowerRisk USDC (LVUSDC). During this exploit, the displayed APY of the vault briefly jumped to a huge 2.08M%. It does not mean users could actually earn a 2.08 million% annual return. Instead, it is an artificially inflated APY caused by the exploit or a manipulation of the vault’s accounting. 

Later on, Summer Finance officially acknowledged the attack in its tweet.

We are aware of the reported exploit a little earlier today and are investigating the root cause. The protocol guardians are currently pausing all Vaults across the Lazy Summer Protocol.

We will provide more updates as we have them.

— Summer.fi ☀ (@summerfinance_) July 6, 2026 Summer Finance Exploiter Drains $6M in DAI, Raising Vault APY to 2.08M% Based on the market data, the Summer.fi exploiter successfully drained a noteworthy $6M in $DAI. During this incident, the displayed APY of the vault reached the stunning 2.08M% mark. This has triggered immediate concerns regarding systemic risk and manipulation. The impacted vault’s biggest current holder is the address “0x874…4130.” The respective address is reportedly connected to UDHC’s Torben Jorgensen, with a cumulative deposit of nearly 8.6M $USDC.

Keeping this in view, the event highlights the DeFi protocols’ fragility amid the rise in sophisticated attacks. At the same time, the incident also underscores the requirement for more effective safeguards against such vulnerabilities. Specifically, the LVUSDC vault experienced manipulation that led to abnormal yield surges. Hence, this misled consumers by making them believe in the vault’s astronomical returns. Additionally, after the drainage of $6M, the sudden APY spike to 2.08M% emerged as a sign of malicious operations instead of a genuine yield generation.

Liquidity Manipulation and Contract Vulnerabilities Emerge as Red Flags According to PeckShieldAlert, such anomalies often play the role of red flags concerning contract-level vulnerabilities or liquidity manipulation. The involvement of Summer.fi’s risk-management partner Block Analitica makes the development more complicated. Overall, the incident signifies the urgent need for improved auditing, contingency planning, and real-time monitoring to secure consumers against such catastrophic losses.

AUTHOR

Umair Younas is a cryptocurrency-related content writer linked with this work since 2019. Here, at Blockchainreporter, he serves as a news and article writer. He is a crypto, blockchain, NFTs, DeFi, and FinTech enthusiast. He has strong command over writing authentic reviews about brokers and exchanges and he has collaborated with our education team to write educational content as well. He has a dream to raise awareness among people about digital currencies. His works are well-researched and brimmed with information hence they provide fresh insights. Stay tuned to his posts if you want to stay up-to-date with the crypto-verse.

ANSEM's market capitalization hits a new record high, briefly exceeding $440 million.

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USDC accounted for around 70% of adjusted stablecoin trading volume in H1, further widening its lead over USDT.

According to on-chain data from Visa, in the first half of 2026, Circle’s stablecoin USDC accounted for approximately 70% of adjusted stablecoin trading volume, further widening its lead over rival Tether’s USDT. In the same period, USDT held a roughly 25% share. The data shows adjusted stablecoin trading volume hit a record $1.79 trillion in June, up 63% from $1.1 trillion in May and 125% from around $795 billion in June 2025. When calculating adjusted trading volume, Visa excludes bot activity, exchange transfers, and other blockchain transactions that do not reflect genuine economic activity. The data release comes as banks and other financial institutions expand their use of stablecoins in payments, settlements, and fund management. Standard Chartered and BNY Mellon recently added services related to Circle’s USDC rather than building their own infrastructure, reflecting that amid rising activity and demand for fiat-pegged digital assets, financial institutions are increasingly leveraging established stablecoin networks. Adjusted stablecoin trading volume totaled $8.82 trillion in the first six months of this year, higher than the full-year 2024 figure of $5.8 trillion, but still roughly $2 trillion lower than the 2025 record of $10.8 trillion. In 2020, USDT once accounted for nearly 90% of adjusted trading volume, while USDC held less than 10%; by 2022, USDC’s share had risen to around 45%.

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According to official announcements, the 2026 trading competition "Island Project"—jointly hosted by Deribit and SignalPlus—has officially launched. The event features a total prize pool of up to 600,000 USDC, marking the first time a private island is offered as the grand prize. Multiple winning tracks are open, including daily trading, block trading, and referral rewards, allowing participants to start competing for rewards immediately. Key highlights: 1. Registration: All participants can claim a free option. 2. Balance: Users maintaining a balance of ≥0.1 USDC are eligible for a draw to win a 600 USDC action camera. 3. Block trading: Block trading fees are reduced by 30%–50%, with an additional post-event draw for a 2,000 USDC luxury vacation. 4. Daily trading: 100% of daily traders win rewards, plus a draw for a 60,000 USDC private island in Finland. 5. Referral: Referring friends guarantees rewards, with an additional post-event draw for a 30,000 USDC private island in Canada. The competition runs from July 6 to August 11 (UTC+8, deadline 7:59). Registration details are available in the official announcement.

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Panama City, Panama, July 6th, 2026, Chainwire

Deribit by Coinbase, via its broker-dealer DRB Panama Inc., and SignalPlus, a leading provider of software and infrastructure solutions for crypto derivatives, today announced the launch of The Island, their fifth trading competition and biggest edition to date.

Running for 35 days, the competition features up to $600,000 USDC in prizes across solo and team competition, daily and weekly reward rounds, Mystery Box deposit mechanics, short-dated options challenges, and a Private Island jackpot.

Registration for The Island opens on June 29 at 08:00 UTC, with the competition running from July 6 at 08:00 UTC through August 10 at 23:59 UTC. To participate, users must trade through SignalPlus on Deribit. Competition standings will be based on eligible options and futures trading volume only, with options weighted 1.0 and futures weighted 0.5.

The campaign is designed around eleven core arenas spanning weekly volume competition, daily reward loops, team participation, referral-driven expansion, whale and block-trade incentives, and dynamic ecosystem progression in one connected experience. New mechanics in this edition include the Mystery Box deposit experience, a weekly P&L leaderboard, short-dated options reward multipliers, and the Flash Arena, where higher short-dated options volume unlocks more jackpot shots and reward opportunities.

Key Details

Total Prize Pool: Up to $600,000 USDC Registration Period: June 29, 2026, 08:00 UTC – August 10, 2026, 23:59 UTC Competition Period: July 6, 2026, 08:00 UTC – August 10, 2026, 23:59 UTC Eligibility: Open to eligible retail traders on Deribit via SignalPlus Registration Link: https://t.signalplus.com/deribitislandcompetition This campaign is run by DRB Panama Inc and is not targeted at or intended for residents of Dubai, UAE. T&Cs apply. Virtual Assets are subject to extreme market volatility, involve a high degree of risk, and can lose value, in part or in full.

Early Bird Incentives

Users who register by July 7th will receive 3 free Deribit options. Team captains who invite five or more friends to register by July 7th will have a chance to win a Cressi Velvet Wetsuit valued at 300 USDC. Among the first 10 participants to reach 200M in trading volume by July 12, one randomly selected winner will receive two RIMOWA suitcases valued at 5,000 USDC in total. “The Island brings together everything we want this competition to be: bigger scale, stronger participation loops, and a structure that rewards how active options traders actually engage,” said Luuk Strijers, Senior Director from Deribit by Coinbase. “With solo and team competition, short-dated options mechanics and aspirational rewards led by the Private Island jackpot, this is our most ambitious retail trading campaign yet.”

“We are excited to partner with Deribit by Coinbase once again on the latest edition of the competition,” said Chris Yu, CEO and Co-Founder from SignalPlus. “The Island is designed to make participation more dynamic and more rewarding, whether traders are competing on volume, teaming up with their network, or engaging through short-dated options and daily missions. Together, we are creating a more immersive experience for sophisticated retail traders.”

Competition Highlights include:

Core Arena: Weekly solo and team trading leaderboards designed to reward notional trading activity across individual and squad-based competition. Mystery Box Deposit Round: Users who register and maintain deposits for seven days unlock Mystery Box draw chances tied to guaranteed USDC prizes and premium rewards. Daily Reward Ecosystem: Daily individual and team missions encourage repeat engagement, with volume-based rewards and team milestone unlocks. Flash Arena: Short-dated options trading powers daily reward multipliers and jackpot-style shooting mechanics, including access to the Private Island reward opportunity. Block Arena: High-balance and block-trade participants can unlock fee rebates and luxury reward opportunities. Expansion Arena: Referral mechanics reward both community growth and successful invitations of higher-value traders. In addition to the Private Island headline reward, this year’s prize pool includes a range of premium rewards such as a Rolex Watch, Apple Vision Pro, NVIDIA Stock, Luxury Turkey Trip, Ledger Stax, Gentle Monster Sunglasses, Razer Keyboard, SOL spot rewards, trading fee coupons, and daily USDC prize pools.

The Island invites participants into a dynamic retail trading competition that combines strategic trading with team-based participation and a tiered reward structure. With every trade, participants move closer to exclusive rewards, from daily USDC prizes to the Private Island headline jackpot. The event begins today.

About Deribit 

Deribit by Coinbase is a centralized, institutional-grade provider of crypto derivatives ecosystem, specializing in Bitcoin and Ethereum options and futures. With state-of-the-art infrastructure, Deribit offers instantaneous price discovery, low-latency execution, advanced risk mitigation tools, and deep liquidity through a network of top-tier market makers. Deribit facilitates the majority of global crypto options volume and upholds rigorous proof-of-reserves practices to maintain the highest standards of integrity and transparency.

About SignalPlus

Signalplus provides trading software and infrastructure for crypto derivatives, helping professional and sophisticated retail traders access options, futures, and spot markets with advanced execution and analytics tools. SignalPlus delivers a comprehensive options trading suite tailored for crypto derivatives traders.

ContactManager, Retail Sales
Sidrah Fariq
Deribit
[email protected]

Disclaimer: Press release sponsored by our commercial partners.

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Here’s a fun way to think about Polygon’s USDC economy: roughly one out of every four dollars of identified stablecoin usage on the network flows through a single crypto casino. Stake.com holds approximately $26.91 million in USDC on Polygon, accounting for 24.8% of all known USDC activity on the chain, according to a new analysis from CoinGecko.

The numbers behind Polygon’s casino economy CoinGecko’s breakdown, released on July 2, paints a picture of extreme concentration within Polygon’s stablecoin landscape. Stake.com’s $26.91M USDC position represents 99.72% of all USDC held in Polygon’s entire casino and gambling category.

For broader context on where Polygon’s USDC actually lives: centralized exchanges account for the largest share at 35.2%, or roughly $41M. Payment processing takes up 8.4%. And then there’s Stake.com, sitting as the single largest non-exchange category at nearly a quarter of the pie.

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The platform uses this USDC primarily as operational float, the working capital needed to process deposits and withdrawals for its global crypto betting operations.

According to the CoinGecko analysis, gambling activity on Ethereum, Arbitrum, Base, and BNB Chain remains minimal by comparison. Polygon has carved out a niche as the preferred settlement layer for high-volume, low-fee betting transactions.

Why Polygon became the house’s favorite chain Stake.com operates across multiple networks, including Ethereum and Solana, for deposits and withdrawals. But the concentration of its USDC reserves on Polygon suggests that’s where the bulk of its settlement infrastructure sits.

The CoinGecko report represents what it calls the first comprehensive public breakdown quantifying how specific platforms shape stablecoin metrics on individual networks.

The security elephant in the room Stake.com’s dominance on Polygon comes with historical baggage that investors should weigh carefully. In September 2023, the platform suffered a $41M hack that targeted funds across Ethereum, Polygon, and BNB Chain.

What this means for investors For Polygon ecosystem participants and USDC holders, Polygon’s apparent USDC traction is less diversified than surface-level numbers suggest. A quarter of identified usage coming from a single gambling operator means the network’s stablecoin story is partially a gambling story.

For traders: on-chain USDC flow analysis on Polygon needs to account for Stake.com’s operational patterns. Large USDC movements on the network might not signal DeFi activity or institutional interest. They might just be a casino rebalancing its float.

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