Interactive chart: How Tether's $USDT beat Circle's $USDC in the stablecoin race

DL News examines how Tether’s dollar-pegged stablecoin USDT has widened its lead over Circle’s USDC in terms of circulating supply and market capitalisation, despite past periods when USDC appeared poised to catch up. The piece uses an interactive chart based on DeFiLlama data to show that after the May 2022 crypto crash—when USDT briefly lost its dollar peg and USDC’s market cap nearly matched it—the trajectories of the two stablecoins diverged. Since then, USDC’s supply has contracted while USDT’s has expanded, leaving Tether with a market cap roughly three-and-a-half times larger than Circle’s offering at the time of reporting. The article attributes much of Tether’s advantage to its entrenchment in Asian and emerging markets, where USDT functions as a primary trading pair on many exchanges and a key vehicle for accessing dollar liquidity. At the same time, macroeconomic conditions and higher US interest rates pushed some investors out of stablecoins and into higher-yielding US Treasuries, a trend that hurt USDC’s growth more visibly than USDT’s. The story matters because it highlights how geographic demand patterns, regulatory positioning, and macro conditions are reshaping the stablecoin landscape: USDT dominates in global market cap and trading liquidity, while USDC is increasingly competitive in regulated environments and on-chain transfer activity, underscoring a split between scale and regulatory alignment.

✨ AI-generated background, compiled from web sources — not editorial content.

More coverage

• Circle's USDC Overtakes Tether As Stablecoin Transfers Hit $1.8 ... (stocktwits.com)
• Circle just might beat Tether, in Europe - Axios (axios.com)
• Stablecoins Hit $300B as the Tether–Circle Duopoly Cracks (bankersinstitute.compliancealliance.com)
• Has USDC Truly Overtaken Tether in the Stablecoin Race - Kavout (kavout.com)

Explore the topic

• USDC
• Bitfinex
• Tether
• Circle