Adjusted stablecoin transaction volume reached a record $1.79 trillion in June, up 63% from May’s $1.1 trillion and 125% from roughly $795 billion a year earlier, according to Visa’s onchain analytics dashboard. The June figure narrowly topped the previous record of $1.78 trillion set in February.
The composition of that volume marks a structural shift. Circle’s USDC accounted for roughly 67% of June’s adjusted activity at $1.21 trillion, while Tether’s USDT captured about 32% at $576 billion. Across the first half of 2026, USDC’s share ran near 70% against roughly 25% for USDT — the widest gap on record, and a near-complete reversal of the market structure from earlier in the decade. Total adjusted volume for the six-month period reached $8.82 trillion, already exceeding the $5.8 trillion recorded during all of 2024.
The methodology matters here. Visa strips out bot activity, exchange transfers and other transactions that do not reflect real economic activity before calculating adjusted volume, meaning the data skews toward payments and settlement rather than trading churn. Tether still dominates by market capitalization and by raw transaction count — USDT processed 145 million transactions in June versus USDC’s 57 million — but the average USDC transfer is far larger, pointing to institutional flows.
Bank adoption appears to be the main driver. Standard Chartered and BNY recently added services built around USDC rather than developing proprietary infrastructure, reflecting a broader institutional shift toward established stablecoin networks for payments, settlement and treasury operations. Activity was heavily concentrated on Solana and Base, with the total stablecoin market capitalization now above $322 billion.
The data effectively splits the stablecoin market in two: USDT retains the retail and emerging-market savings franchise, while USDC consolidates the institutional settlement layer. Whether that division holds through the second half of the year will depend on how quickly competing bank-backed issuance projects come to market.
