Circle has minted approximately 5 billion USDC over the past week according to onchain data trackers, marking one of the company's largest weekly issuance pushes to date.
Onchain analytics platform Solscan identified the $5 billion minting activity, which adds to a series of substantial issuances seen throughout the year. Previously in April, Circle minted a record 3.25 billion USDC across separate tranches on Solana, followed by an additional 1.25 billion USDC mint on Solana during the week of August 20. These developments have helped Solana's share of the total USDC supply climb past 10% in 2026, though Ethereum continues to hold roughly two-thirds of circulating USDC.
Despite the fresh supply, USDC's circulating supply stands near $74 billion, remaining less than half of Tether's $183.1 billion market capitalization. Combined, USDC and Tether account for approximately 83% of the broader $304 billion stablecoin market. However, Circle has frequently highlighted transaction volume as a key counterweight to Tether's larger float, noting that USDC recorded $18.3 trillion in transaction volume in 2025 compared to USDT's $13.3 trillion.
The latest issuance coincides with Circle's role as the technical infrastructure partner and technical deployer for USDC on the derivatives exchange Hyperliquid. Hyperliquid activated an upgrade to route reserve yield on approximately $5 billion of USDC held on its platform into buybacks of its HYPE token. Coinbase acts as Hyperliquid's official USDC treasury deployer, following a transition where Hyperliquid's USDH stablecoin was phased out in favor of USDC.
Analysts will be monitoring whether the recent issuance represents a temporary spike and if competitive dynamics regarding distribution deals will shape future growth between the two leading stablecoins.
