Stablecoin Liquidity Hits $1.79T Monthly; Supply $322B Peak

The stablecoin market recorded $1.79 trillion in monthly transaction volume in June 2026. Total supply peaked at about $322 billion in May and fell to roughly $312 billion by July. Tether (USDT) accounted for about $184 billion of supply, or 59.5%, and USDC held roughly $73 billion, or 23.6%.

Reported volume was dominated by exchange trading, automated bots and arbitrage, which represented about 88% of reported transfers. Estimates of genuine payment activity range from roughly 5% to 10% of raw volume. One central bank estimate placed payment-like activity for 2025 between $350 billion and $550 billion; other methodologies extend the upper bound to about $1.3 trillion.

Adjusted-volume measures for 2025 showed USDC processing about $18.3 trillion in annual transaction volume versus USDT’s $13.3 trillion. On raw on-chain trade counts, USDT led with about 74% of trades.

Chain distribution by supply in mid-2026 put Ethereum at about $154 billion, Tron at about $90 billion, Solana near $15 billion and BNB Chain close to $14 billion. Solana processed roughly $650 billion in stablecoin transfers in February 2026 and accounted for about 35% of global on-chain stablecoin transfers by transaction count that month.

Centralized exchanges reported average daily stablecoin trading of about $97.6 billion in the first half of 2026. USDT represented about $75.5 billion and USDC about $18.9 billion of that daily volume, combining for approximately 96.7% of CEX stablecoin trading. Bid-ask spreads for USDT and USDC on major exchanges were below 0.01%.

On decentralized venues, Curve’s 3pool held more than $500 million in TVL and showed near-zero slippage for swaps under $10 million. Mid-tier stablecoins recorded wider spreads and DEX slippage on larger trades ranging from 0.1% to 2%, depending on pool and chain.

Aave held over $40 billion in total value locked, with stablecoins making up more than one third of TVL. Aave’s cumulative loan volume exceeded $1 trillion in Q1 2026. Stablecoin lending rates on major platforms ranged about 2% to 6% as supply exceeded borrower demand.

Perpetual DEXs including Hyperliquid, dYdX and GMX reported roughly $579 billion in 30-day perpetual futures volume settled in USDC and USDe. Hyperliquid had about $5.9 billion in stablecoin supply and handled institutional-perpetual activity settled in USDC.

Identified market risks included smart contract vulnerabilities and DeFi exploits, which totaled about $2.8 billion in 2025. An Arbitrum contract issue affected USDG in May 2026. Curve 3pool was estimated to absorb imbalances of roughly $50 million to $100 million before material depegging pressure. Enforcement of MiCA on July 1, 2026 delisted USDT from MiCA-licensed EU exchanges, creating separate liquidity pools across regulated and unregulated venues. Persistent negative perpetual funding rates reduced yields on some synthetic stablecoin products and placed pressure on insurance funds.

Mid-tier stablecoin supply rose from under $5 billion to over $30 billion in 18 months. Estimates put USDS at about $8.2 billion, USD1 near $4.74 billion, USDe around $4.5 billion, USDG just over $3 billion and RLUSD about $1.54 billion. USDC supply increased from roughly $43 billion at the end of Q1 2026 to about $73 billion by mid-2026, supported by regulatory changes in Europe and wider retail distribution.