USDC Finally Beats USDT: Here’s How Solana and Trump Made It Happen
Circle’s USDC has overtaken Tether’s USDT in annual transaction quantity for the primary time, marking a historic shift within the stablecoin panorama.
For a decade, USDT has reigned because the undisputed king of stablecoins. It nonetheless instructions a $187 billion market cap—practically 2.5 instances USDC’s $75 billion market cap. Yet 2025 revealed a unique story beneath the floor: the smaller stablecoin is now shifting extra money.
USDC Leads by 39%
According to information from Artemis Analytics, USDC processed $18.3 trillion value of transfers in 2025, in comparison with USDT‘s $13.2 trillion—a 39% hole.
Artemis Stablecoin Transfer Volume filters out MEV bot transactions and intra-exchange transfers, isolating the platform’s “natural” on-chain exercise. This metric supplies an higher certain on precise funds and DeFi utilization, reasonably than uncooked transaction counts inflated by automated buying and selling. In quick, real-world funds, P2P transfers, and DeFi exercise rely; automated bot trades and trade pockets reshuffling don’t.
Why USDC Pulled Ahead
The hole comes right down to 4 elements: how DeFi works, the place it’s occurring, an sudden catalyst, and regulatory timing.
1. DeFi Turnover
Analysts attribute the hole largely to how every stablecoin is used. USDC dominates decentralized finance platforms, the place merchants incessantly enter and exit positions. The identical greenback will get recycled a number of instances by lending protocols and DEX swaps. USDT, in contrast, serves extra as a retailer of worth and fee rail—customers have a tendency to carry it in wallets reasonably than transfer it continually.
2. The Solana Factor
Solana’s explosive DeFi growth grew to become USDC’s major engine. The stablecoin now accounts for over 70% of all stablecoins on the community, whereas USDT stays focused on Tron. In Q1 2025 alone, Solana’s complete stablecoin provide surged from $5.2 billion to $11.7 billion—a 125% enhance pushed nearly totally by USDC inflows.
3. The Trump Token Irony
The January 2025 launch of the TRUMP memecoin inadvertently supercharged USDC adoption. The token’s major liquidity pool on Meteora DEX is paired with USDC, not USDT. This meant merchants dashing to purchase TRUMP first wanted to amass USDC, creating a requirement spike that rippled throughout Solana’s DeFi ecosystem.
The irony runs deeper: the Trump household launched its own stablecoin, USD1, by World Liberty Financial in March. Yet the TRUMP token they impressed ended up boosting a competitor’s stablecoin.
4. Regulatory Tailwinds
The July passage of the Genius Act in the US established clear authorized requirements for stablecoin issuers. Industry observers observe that USDC’s longstanding emphasis on regulatory compliance and reserve transparency positioned it to profit most from the brand new framework. In Europe, USDC’s MiCA compliance has given it an edge amid delisting strain on a number of exchanges going through USDT.
A Rising Tide
The USDC surge contributed to document stablecoin exercise total. Total transaction quantity reached $33 trillion in 2025, up 72% 12 months over 12 months. This fall alone noticed $11 trillion in flows, accelerating from $8.8 trillion in Q3.
Bloomberg Intelligence tasks stablecoin fee flows may attain $56 trillion by 2030, positioning the sector as a significant world fee rail alongside conventional networks.
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