USDC Supply Surge: Circle Closes Gap With Tether

Circle has minted a record-breaking 5 billion USDC in just one week, according to onchain analytics platform Solscan. This massive issuance is part of an ongoing supply race between Circle and Tether.

The latest print comes after Circle previously minted a record 3.25 billion USDC on Solana in April and another 1.25 billion USDC on the same platform in August, with the latter including a single-day issuance of 250 million USDC. As a result, Solana's share of total USDC supply has climbed past 10% this year.

Despite still lagging behind Tether's $183.1 billion market cap, with only about half as much circulating supply at around $74 billion, Circle is making strides in closing the gap between the two stablecoins. The company argues that its transaction volume, which reached $18.3 trillion in 2025 against USDT's $13.3 trillion, and adjusted stablecoin transaction volume are key indicators of its success.

Circle has also taken on a new role as technical deployer for USDC on Hyperliquid, the derivatives exchange that activated its 'AQAv2' upgrade today to route reserve yield on roughly $5 billion of USDC sitting on its platform into buybacks of its HYPE token. This arrangement gives Circle a direct incentive to keep fresh USDC flowing toward platforms like Hyperliquid.