AI Agents Threaten Circle's USDC Stablecoin Dominance

Circle's USDC stablecoin dominates agentic AI payment activity, but its lead is facing growing competition as more players enter the space. Apple and Google are building expertise in stablecoins and tokenized finance, while Circle and Tether develop their own blockchain infrastructure.

Circle launched its layer-1 network Arc public mainnet last week, which it claims will be 'the first blockchain designed from genesis for AI agents as economic actors.' The company also minted 10 billion ARC tokens, exploring a future transition to proof-of-stake next year.

Currently, USDC controls 98.6% of agentic AI payment volume, but forecasts point to dramatically greater activity. Arc processes more than 3,000 transactions per second (TPS), with Circle targeting 100,000 TPS. Some estimates suggest total agentic AI consumer spending will hit $944 billion this year.

However, a recent report from TRM Labs found that most of the payment volume flowing through x402 facilitators isn't actually agentic, accounting for only between 0.6%-7.5% of all x402 commerce. Circle's dominance in AI payments may be short-lived as Apple and Google build their own stablecoin rails.