USDT Dominates Onchain Payments While USDC Leads DeFi, Dune Says

Dune’s Digital Asset Brief says the world’s biggest stablecoins are increasingly becoming chain-specific products, with Tether’s USDt (USDT) dominating onchain payments while Circle’s USDC leads in decentralized finance.

“The USDC stablecoin by Circle has widened its lead over rival USDT in stablecoin transaction volume during the first half of 2026 underscoring a shift in how dollar stablecoins are being used as banks and financial institutions expand on-chain payments”

BitKE

During the first half of 2026, the biggest stablecoin settled about $95 billion in identified commerce payments, compared with $14 billion for second-biggest USDC, and it accounted for roughly 92% of the $48 billion in business-to-business payment volume.

BitKE

On Tron, Dune found that around 93% of the token’s supply is held in ordinary wallets rather than on exchanges, underscoring USDT’s role as a payment and remittance asset.

USDC’s DeFi footprint is described as dominant as well, with USDC on Base processing roughly $2.6 trillion in transfer volume in June and another $1.6 trillion on Ethereum.

Dune also says USDC on Base recorded daily velocity of about 20 times its circulating supply in June, reflecting extensive use in trading and DeFi.

Visa’s onchain dashboard data cited by BitKE and CoinDesk shows USDC widening its lead over Tether’s USDT in stablecoin transaction volume during the first half of 2026.

BitKE says adjusted transaction volume on the USDC network reached roughly $12 trillion between January and June 2026, accounting for nearly 70% of all stablecoin transfers, while Tether’s USDT represented about 25% of adjusted volume.

CoinDesk

CoinDesk adds that adjusted stablecoin transaction volume hit a record $1.79 trillion in June 2026, up 63% from May’s $1.1 trillion and 125% from about $795 billion in June 2025.

CoinDesk also reports that the first six months of the year totaled $8.82 trillion in adjusted stablecoin transaction volume, and that USDC accounted for about 70% of that first-half figure.

Both pieces tie the shift to banks and financial institutions expanding stablecoin use for payments, settlement, and treasury operations, with Visa removing bot activity, exchange transfers, and other transactions that do not reflect real economic activity before calculating adjusted volume.

In the United States, the stablecoin sector’s momentum is linked to the passage of the GENIUS Act, which was signed into law in 2025 and established the first federal regulatory framework for payment stablecoins.

“USDC on Base recorded daily velocity of about 20 times its circulating supply in June, reflecting its extensive use in trading and DeFi”

Cointelegraph

TradingView says lawmakers are now debating the CLARITY Act, which would define when crypto assets fall under the jurisdiction of the US Securities and Exchange Commission or the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and notes that CLARITY cleared the Senate Banking Committee in May.

TradingView also reports that Galaxy trimmed its odds of passage before the break to 50% as lawmakers run short on time, with a full Senate vote possible before the August recess.

CoinDesk adds that stablecoin market cap fell to $312B in June, its largest monthly drop since TerraUSD, while tokenized equity volumes surged 145% to a record $3.86B.

Against that backdrop, the sources frame the stakes as both regulatory and market-structure changes shaping stablecoin issuers, exchanges, and DeFi platforms, even as stablecoins continue to diverge by use case across payments and DeFi.