USDT Settles $95B in Payments, USDC Hits $2.6T Velocity on Base: Dune

Tether’s USDT settled roughly $95 billion in identified onchain commerce payments in the first half of 2026, more than six times the $14 billion processed by Circle’s USDC over the same period, according to Dune’s Digital Asset Brief. The split extends to business-to-business flows, where USDT captured about 92% of $48 billion in tracked volume — data that shows the two largest stablecoins are no longer competing head-on but occupying separate corners of crypto’s liquidity map.

USDC’s strength shows up on a different ledger entirely. On Base, the stablecoin processed approximately $2.6 trillion in transfer volume in June alone, the highest of any token-chain pair tracked by Dune, with daily velocity running near 20 times its circulating supply. Ethereum added another $1.6 trillion in USDC transfers over the same month, cementing the asset’s role as the settlement layer for trading and DeFi rather than commerce.

Wallet composition tells the underlying story

On Tron, USDT’s largest network by supply, around 93% of tokens sit in ordinary wallets rather than exchange addresses, a distribution consistent with remittance and payment use rather than active trading. USDT’s overall supply is split almost evenly between Tron and Ethereum, according to Dune, giving it a payments rail on the cheaper chain and a liquidity base on the more institutional one.

USDC’s supply distribution looks structurally different. Despite expanding to newer chains including Base, the token remains heavily concentrated on Ethereum — the same network where most DeFi lending, perps and AMM liquidity still clears. The high velocity figures on Base suggest the stablecoin is cycling rapidly through trading strategies rather than sitting idle in wallets, the opposite profile of USDT on Tron.

Combined dominance, divergent utility

Together, USDT and USDC account for roughly 83% of the stablecoin sector’s approximately $315 billion market capitalization, based on Dune’s tracking of more than 200 stablecoin tokens across multiple blockchains. For traders and on-chain researchers, the practical implication is that chain selection now matters as much as issuer selection when reading stablecoin flows for signal — a spike in USDT volume on Tron points toward payments and remittance activity, while a spike in USDC velocity on Base or Ethereum points toward trading and DeFi positioning.

Regulatory backdrop still in motion

The data lands as US stablecoin regulation continues to firm up. The GENIUS Act, signed into law in 2025, established the first federal framework for payment stablecoins and opened the door for banks and other regulated entities to issue dollar-pegged tokens. Lawmakers are now weighing the CLARITY Act, which would define jurisdictional lines between the SEC and CFTC for digital assets broadly.

CLARITY cleared the Senate Banking Committee in May and could reach a full Senate vote before the August recess, though Galaxy has reportedly trimmed its odds of passage before the break to 50% as the legislative calendar tightens. While the bill does not regulate stablecoins directly, its outcome would shape the compliance environment for issuers, exchanges and DeFi platforms that route the bulk of USDT and USDC volume tracked in Dune’s report.

Read more: Stablecoin Supply Shrinks $7.7B in June, Worst Drop Since Terra’s 2022 Collapse