Circle mints $5B USDC in a week as supply rises

Circle minted roughly $5 billion USDC over the past seven days, increasing USDC’s circulating supply to about $74 billion. Tether’s USDT supply stands near $183 billion. The issuance was visible on on-chain trackers and was one of Circle’s largest weekly minting runs this year.

Onchain analytics firm Solscan recorded the new supply on the Solana blockchain in multiple tranches over the last week. Earlier in 2026 Circle minted 3.25 billion USDC on Solana in April and 1.25 billion in the week of Aug. 20, including a single-day 250 million mint. Those moves have helped Solana’s share of total USDC climb above 10% this year, while Ethereum holds roughly two-thirds of USDC in circulation.

Circle became the technical deployer for USDC on derivatives venue Hyperliquid in May, with Coinbase named Hyperliquid’s USDC treasury deployer. Hyperliquid converted platform reserves to USDC and activated an AQAv2 upgrade to route reserve yield on roughly $5 billion of USDC into buybacks of its HYPE token. Under that arrangement, dollars parked on Hyperliquid generate deployable yield rather than sit only on a balance sheet.

USDC and USDT together account for about 83% of a roughly $304 billion stablecoin market. USDC’s market cap remains below Tether’s, while transaction figures show different patterns of use.

Circle has highlighted transaction-volume metrics showing USDC moved about $18.3 trillion in 2025 versus USDT’s $13.3 trillion. Data also indicate USDC accounted for roughly 70% of adjusted stablecoin transaction volume in the first half of the year, despite a smaller circulating supply.

Analysts and market participants will watch Circle’s upcoming financial filings and operational updates for indications of whether large weekly minting will continue and how new supply will be distributed, including through partnerships and on-chain integrations.