Circle’s USD Coin (USDC) stablecoin has crossed the $16 trillion mark in complete cumulative quantity.
Whereas this quantity falls wanting conventional monetary powerhouses like Visa, which processed over $12 trillion in funds simply final 12 months, it highlights the outstanding progress of stablecoins. Regardless of their comparatively brief existence, stablecoins have rapidly established themselves as key gamers within the international monetary market.
Stablecoins play a necessary function within the crypto ecosystem. They facilitate the sleek switch of funds, assist seamless buying and selling between tokens, and allow funds, particularly for cross-border transactions.
Launched in 2018, USDC is the second-largest stablecoin by market capitalization, with $34.6 billion at present in circulation. Circle has strategically positioned USDC as a extra regulatory-compliant stablecoin, differentiating it from rivals like USDT.
This method has contributed to USDC’s dominance in transactions this 12 months, surpassing Tether’s USDT regardless of having a smaller circulating provide. In response to Artemis, USDC now accounts for roughly 50% of the overall stablecoin transaction quantity.
Solana fuelling USDC’s progress
USDC’s transaction quantity is primarily pushed by the Solana blockchain, which holds greater than three-quarters of the stablecoin market share. Information from DeFiLlama signifies that USDC makes up about 65% of Solana’s $3.98 billion stablecoin provide.
A stablecoin dashboard created by Visa Inc., in collaboration with Allium Labs, exhibits that USDC’s transaction quantity on Solana has soared to roughly $8.29 trillion for the reason that starting of final 12 months. Its nearest rival, USDT on TRON, noticed a quantity of $7 trillion throughout the identical timeframe.
This progress isn’t stunning, given Solana’s recognition for its velocity and decrease transaction prices, which have attracted curiosity from conventional monetary gamers like PayPal.
The current surge in memecoin buying and selling and DeFi actions on Solana has additional propelled its rise. Over the previous few months, the market has even seen cases when buying and selling exercise on Solana surpassed Ethereum’s.