Foreign sources cite the link between Visa and Allium as saying that a clearer division of labour is emerging in the stable currency market: USDC leads large settlements, and USDT still accounts for a broader demand for small transfers and offshore dollars. In terms of market value, the USDT is still the largest stable currency, but USDC is clearly in the lead when measured by the “real economic activity” calibrated after the removal of noise from internal transfers, robotic activity, etc.
Increase in the monthly settlement gap
It was reported that in June 2026, the adjusted total of stable currency transactions reached $1.79 trillion, a new high. Of this, USDC is about $121 trillion, or 67 per cent; USDT is about $573 billion. In the first half of 2026, USDC's share was almost 70%, USDT was about 25%.
This means that the “market value first” and “settlement first” of the stable currency market are no longer the same assets. The USDT is still ahead of the market value of about $18.4 billion, and the market value of USDC is about $73 billion, but the role of the two in the actual flow of funds has been divided.
Banks and institutions promoting USDC Quantification
According to the article, the lead by USDC is not short-term fluctuations, but results from years of accumulation. Circle has continued to organize over the past few years around compliance lines, including regular disclosure of reserves in United States debt and cash allocation reserves, and facilitating the entry of products into a more regulatory framework in the United States and Europe.
Further acceleration of institutional adoption in 2026 was reported. Standard Chartered Bank began to provide for the casting and foreclosure of USDC through its regular banking infrastructure, and Melon Bank, New York, also incorporated USDC into its digital asset hosting platform. According to this article, large banks are more inclined to access the existing compliance and stability network than to issue their own tokens.
USDT continues to outperform transactions.
However, USDT has not lost all its advantages. According to June data, USDT processed about 145 million transactions, significantly above 57 million USDC. According to the article, USDT continues to be used more frequently for high-frequency, small-value, and more user-oriented United States dollar transfer scenarios, especially in emerging market and offshore trading environments.
In other words, USDC moves single funds on a larger scale and USDT covers more users and transactions. This difference is summarized in the article as two-tiered: the former is more like an institutional settlement channel, while the latter is more like a storage and a circulation tool.
The statistical caliber is controversial.
The report also mentions that such “adjusted trade volumes” are not raw chain data, but estimates based on filtration exchange internal transfers, robotic circulars and incorporated transfers, so that the method itself has a judgement component.
In addition, the fact that Visa has been a partner of Circle since 2020 makes some critics cautious about the calibration of the data. However, according to the article, since early 2025, when USDC stabilized for the first time on monthly adjusted transactions, this trend has continued for several quarters and there is no main data set to conclude otherwise.