Circle’s USDC pulls ahead of Tether’s USDT in transaction volume — Visa

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Circle
Internet
Financial’s
stablecoin,
USDC,
has
surpassed
Tether’s
USDT
as
the
market
leader
in
transaction
volume
this
year,
according
to

data
compiled
by
Visa
Inc.
in
partnership
with
Allium
Labs.

The
adjusted
stablecoin
metric,
which
aims
to
reflect
the
state
of
the
stablecoin
market
while
minimizing
potential
distortions
from
inorganic
activity
and
artificial
inflationary
practices,
shows
USDC’s
growing
market
share
since
the
start
of
2024.

Last
week,
USDC
recorded
$456
billion
in
transaction
volume
compared
to
$89
billion
for
USDT,
with
USDC
accounting
for
50%
of
total
transactions
since
January.

This
finding
challenges
the
common
perception
that
USDT
is
the
industry’s
dominant
stablecoin,
which
is
based
on
its
68%
share
of
coins
in
circulation
relative
to
USDC’s
20%,
according
to
DefiLlama
data.

Noelle
Acheson,
author
of
the
Crypto
Is
Macro
Now
newsletter,
suggests
that
the
discrepancy
may
be
explained
by
USDT
being
more
widely
held
outside
the
US
as
a
dollar-based
store
of
value,
while
USDC
is
used
in
the
US
as
a
transaction
currency.

Stablecoins,
which
aim
to
maintain
a
steady
price
in
line
with
a
fiat
currency,
typically
the
US
dollar,
play
a
crucial
role
in
the
crypto
ecosystem
by
helping
traders
move
funds
in
and
out
of
tokens
and

facilitating
payments
for
purposes
such
as

cross-border
remittances.

The
findings
come
in
the
wake
of
Circle’s
involvement
in
the
US
banking
crisis
last
year,
which
saw
the
total
value
of
USDC
in
circulation
fall
from
a
high
of
$56
billion
to
$23
billion
in
December
2023
after
Circle
revealed
a
$3.3
billion
exposure
to
the
ill-fated
Silicon
Valley
Bank.

However,
the
value
of
USDC
in
circulation
has
since
rebounded
to
$32.8
billion.

However,
interpreting
stablecoin
transaction
data
can
be
challenging
due
to
the
various
use
cases
and
the
potential
for
transactions
to
be
initiated
manually
by
end-users
or
(programmatically)
through
bots,
as
Visa’s
Head
of
Crypto,
Cuy
Sheffield,
explained
in
a

recent
blog.

When
cleansed
of
trades
linked
to
bots,
the
total
transfer
volume
over
the
30
days
prior
to
April
24
fell
from
$2.65
trillion
to
$265
billion,
according
to
Cuy
Sheffield,
head
of
crypto
at
Visa.

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