Stablecoins Hold Near $300B; USDC Grows as Tether Dips

Published October 5, 2026, 04:36 UTC. Live supply figures as of October 5, 2026, about 04:10 UTC.

In short: the total value of stablecoins barely moved in the third quarter, but the mix underneath shifted. USDC and several smaller coins grew, Tether's USDT shrank slightly, and supply moved from Ethereum toward Tron.

The headline number

Stablecoin market capitalization stood at $300.9 billion on October 1, according to a joint Q3 report from RWA Foundation and Token Terminal, as summarized by The Crypto Times. The report covered 195 stablecoins from 152 issuers across 47 blockchains, with 308.4 million addresses holding a balance.

Other trackers count differently. DefiLlama's stablecoin data put US dollar-pegged supply at about $312 billion on October 5, below its peak of about $320.8 billion on May 17. Treat the totals as estimates that depend on which tokens each tracker includes.

Who grew and who did not

Over the 90 days to October 1, the report found:

• Circle added $915 million, the most of any issuer. Its USDC added $881 million.
• Ripple's RLUSD added $765.3 million, United Stables' U added $474.2 million and Ethena's USDe added $419.1 million.
• Tether's supply fell by $207.7 million. It still issued about 61% of all stablecoins, and Tether and Circle together held 85.9%.

Supply is not the same as reach. Tether added 17.2 million holder addresses in the quarter even as its supply dipped. BNB Chain added 12.9 million holder addresses despite hosting about 1.2% of supply. Addresses are not people: one person can control many addresses, and an exchange can hold funds for millions of users in a few.

The short-term picture is noisier. DefiLlama showed USDT at about $184.0 billion and USDC at about $74.2 billion on October 5, with USDC roughly $1 billion lower than a week earlier.

Tron gains on Ethereum

The biggest moves were between blockchains. Tron's stablecoin supply rose $5.0 billion, or 5.6%, to $93.9 billion, while Ethereum's fell $4.9 billion. Ethereum still hosts 54.2% of supply against Tron's 31.2%. HyperEVM was the second-fastest grower, adding $1.5 billion to reach $7.0 billion.

USDT heads back to Bitcoin

Tether's stablecoin is also returning to the network where it started. CoinDesk reported on October 2 that Utexo, a Tether-backed project, has been granted the commercial license to issue USDT on Bitcoin, and is expected to begin issuing it this month. USDT launched on Bitcoin in 2014 before moving mainly to Ethereum and Tron.

Utexo plans private transfers, direct swaps between bitcoin and USDT, and loans backed by native bitcoin. It will use the RGB protocol to keep most transaction data off Bitcoin's public ledger. Because tokens built this way cannot be frozen the way Tether freezes Ethereum addresses, Utexo said it would keep a blacklist of coins linked to sanctioned or illicit activity and share it with exchanges. "It's coming home," Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino posted on X, according to CoinDesk.

Why it matters

Stablecoins are a main way money moves between crypto markets, and large companies are starting to build payment services on them. Supply is one gauge of how many dollars sit inside the crypto economy, so a flat quarter is worth noting, though it does not show where prices are heading.

The share shifts matter too. Growth is spreading to newer issuers and chains, but the market still runs overwhelmingly on the US dollar: dollar coins accounted for 99.3% of holder addresses in the report. US rules are still being written; see our report on the Fed's proposed GENIUS Act rules. For the basics, read how stablecoins work. For one example of banks connecting to these networks, see our story on Citi and Coinbase.

This article is news reporting and is not investment advice.

Sources

• The Crypto Times, Stablecoin Market Reaches $300.9B as Tron Gains $5B in Q3 (Oct. 2, 2026), summarizing the RWA Foundation and Token Terminal Q3 2026 report
• DefiLlama, Stablecoins dashboard and public stablecoin data API, accessed Oct. 5, 2026, about 04:10 UTC
• CoinDesk, Tether's USDT is 'coming home' to Bitcoin after more than a decade (published Oct. 2, 2026)