The total value of stablecoins has dropped around $14 billion since May, the largest monthly decrease since 2022. However, record-high transaction volumes indicate that stablecoins are increasingly being used for quick payments, rather than just being held as digital savings.
Key Takeaways
- Stablecoin value fell $13.91B from May’s peak as June supply dropped $7.7B, the most since Terra in 2022.
- USDC settled $1.21T in June, helping stablecoins hit $1.83T as faster payments offset shrinking supply.
- Standard Chartered sees 6 monthly turns as tokenized Treasuries near $16B and pull idle cash from USDT.
Stablecoin Issuers Lose $7.7 Billion in June as Transaction Volume Jumps 63%
As a crypto investor, I’ve noticed something interesting – stablecoin supplies are actually going down for the first time in ages. But honestly, I don’t think this necessarily means everyone is suddenly rushing *out* of stablecoins. There might be other factors at play besides just increased demand.
The total value of the market has decreased by roughly 4.3%, dropping from $322.41 billion in May to $308.5 billion. The market lost $7.7 billion in June, marking the biggest monthly decrease since the failure of Terra in May 2022.
At the same time, adjusted stablecoin transaction volume reached a record $1.83 trillion in June. That was 60% higher than in May and more than double the level recorded a year earlier.
This change suggests people are using stablecoins differently now. Less money is being held passively, and more of it is actively being used for things like making payments, trading, and finalizing transactions.
Idle Balances Move Into Yield-Bearing Assets
Tether’s USDT supply declined from $189.54 billion as at May 1 to roughly $184 billion as at July 29. Within the same period, Circle’s USDC fell from $77.27 billion to $72.41 billion. The contraction remains modest compared with the 26% market collapse of 2022.
Some capital appears to have moved into tokenized Treasury products, which offer returns unavailable on payment stablecoins. The sector has expanded to over $16 billion, up from about $11 billion in March, according to data from rwa.xyz.
As an analyst, I’ve been following the impact of the GENIUS Act, which was signed into law last July. Essentially, it stops companies from earning interest directly on payment stablecoins. This is designed to shift the incentive away from simply *holding* stablecoins as a savings vehicle and instead encourage their use specifically for making payments. We’re seeing treasurers now favor keeping their savings in tokenized funds and only turning to stablecoins when they need to transact.
Transaction Velocity Replaces Market Cap as Key Metric
According to a March 2026 report from Standard Chartered, stablecoins are now being traded about six times each month. This is around double the rate from two years prior. Visa data also shows that a single stablecoin dollar changes hands much more often than a dollar kept in a typical US bank account.
As an analyst, I’ve been tracking the stablecoin landscape closely, and it’s interesting to see USDC taking the lead as the preferred settlement asset. Even though there’s less USDC in circulation than USDT, it handled significantly more transaction volume in June – around $1.21 trillion compared to USDT’s $576 billion. This suggests users are increasingly choosing USDC for settling trades and other transactions.
It’s important to remember that not every transaction on a blockchain actually represents money changing hands. Things like automated processes, movements between exchanges, and artificial trading can make the total number of transactions seem much higher than actual economic activity.
According to a Forbes report, McKinsey and Artemis estimated that identifiable real-world payments accounted for about $390 billion in 2025. Business-to-business transactions made up $226 billion, while payroll and remittances contributed roughly $90 billion.
The payments share remains small, but it has expanded sharply over two years.
While the total value of stablecoins remains important because companies earn money from the funds backing them, how often these stablecoins are used in transactions might become a more critical indicator for networks and financial platforms. Recent data shows stablecoins are shifting from simply being held as collateral to becoming a more dynamic part of the financial system.
2026-07-29 21:01