Circle to expand $USDC to 40 developing markets
While stablecoin adoption has continued to grow, it has not reached greater levels. As such, CEO Jeremy Allaire of Circle announced they were targeting expansion into 40 developing markets across Latin America, Southeast Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.
In this context, Visa is now moving $USDC funding for cross-border payouts from pilot to commercial use across 180 countries.
However, the cost of turning $USDC back into local money is unknown. A cheap transfer can still have an expensive last step.
This could widen the gap between $USDC and $USDT in transaction volume. According to Bernstein reports, it now handles over 60% of adjusted transaction volume in 2026, despite $USDT having a bigger cap.
That is, $USDC was capped at $72.5 billion, while $USDT was at $183 billion, which is more than double. Still, Circle continues to provide stablecoin liquidity, minting $3.75 billion in $USDC on Solana over the past 7 days.
Has Circle’s new blockchain helped in the quest?
As Circle challenges Tether in stablecoin business dominance, it launched its chain in mid-September under the name Arc. However, the Arc blockchain is still underutilized, accounting for less than 1% of all $USDC, equivalent to $661.4 million.
As per Token Terminal, 66.6% of the supply was on Ethereum [ETH], with Solana [SOL], HyperEVM, Base, and Arbitrum One [ARB] following, respectively. This indicates that Arc is yet to play a key role in challenging $USDT’s dominance.
It is still worth noting that the DeFi TVL of $USDC grew by 6% upon chain launch. Weekly asset senders also increased by 5.4%, reaching 5.5 million as of press time.
However, Circle’s stock CRCL continued to decline in valuation, from $84 to $82.
Final Summary
- Circle’s $USDC accounts for 60% of stablecoin transactions, even though $USDT has a market cap that is double.
- Despite launching Arc blockchain, most of the $USDC circulating supply was sitting on Ethereum and Solana.
