USDC handled about $18.3 trillion in transfers in 2025, topping USDT’s roughly $13.3 trillion and reshaping how stablecoins moved on-chain. The headline is not about which token was “bigger,” but about which one was used more aggressively for settlement-style throughput.
USDT still carried the larger market cap at roughly $186–187B, yet USDC’s transactional velocity accelerated on high-throughput rails. That divergence signals a structural shift in routing behavior: flows increasingly optimized for speed, low fees, and deep liquidity rather than for headline supply.
Why Solana became the velocity engine
Solana’s low-fee, high-throughput profile created an environment where transaction-heavy stablecoin usage could compound quickly. Within that setup, USDC emerged as the dominant stablecoin on Solana, often holding more than 70% and at times around 77% of the chain’s stablecoin supply.
Solana’s stablecoin supply expansion amplified the concentration effect and turned USDC liquidity into a default settlement layer on the network. In Q1 2025, Solana’s stablecoin supply grew by about 125% and pushed beyond $11 billion, tightening the feedback loop between liquidity depth and transaction volume.
As USDC liquidity concentrated, large-pair execution improved and the network’s DeFi rails naturally routed more activity through USDC-denominated pools. Lower slippage on bigger trades and deeper DEX liquidity are exactly the mechanics that support frequent settlement, high-frequency strategies, and remittance-style flows that depend on low per-transaction cost.
A clear example of event-driven routing showed up with the January 2025 launch of the $TRUMP memecoin, which forced rapid USDC acquisition inside Solana’s DeFi stack. The primary liquidity pool on Meteora was paired with USDC, and that pairing created a short-term demand wave that pushed additional USDC turnover through the same on-chain venues.
Institutional settlement and policy tailwinds
Visa’s USDC-on-Solana integration for U.S. bank settlements, starting in December 2025, added a settlement-grade demand stream on top of retail and DeFi activity. The significance is that this kind of traffic increases sustained transaction counts, not just circulating supply.
Regulatory clarity in mid-2025 also shifted risk appetite toward USD-backed, reserve-transparent instruments and supported USDC’s positioning. The July 2025 passage of the Genius Act established legal standards for stablecoin issuers, and USDC’s emphasis on audited reserve practices and compliance—framed as aligned with the EU’s MiCA approach—fit the direction of travel described here.
Macro and policy actions under the Trump administration contributed to the same outcome by changing liquidity conditions and how capital was routed into digital markets. With supportive liquidity measures in place and major financial and corporate actors signaling stablecoin exploration and integration, USDC’s role as a settlement medium strengthened even without overtaking USDT’s market cap.
The operational impact showed up in how Solana carried the load: higher USDC throughput increased transaction density and raised peak validator demand during spikes. That translated into heavier RPC request profiles, more liquidity-driven state churn, and a practical need for teams to tune bandwidth allocation and block propagation under stress.
The next test is whether these flows stay concentrated on Solana and USDC or diffuse as more settlement rails and compliance regimes mature. The trajectory will be shaped by additional institutional integrations and any follow-on regulatory measures, with direct consequences for congestion management, validator sizing, and cross-chain liquidity design.
