Stablecoin supply has barely grown this year even as payment activity has surged, CoinDesk reported on November 8. Citing Allium data for the first nine months of 2026, the outlet said supply rose 0.4% to $305 billion, while payments involving stablecoins grew 45% to $482 billion and the number of transactions climbed 71% to 1.04 billion.
Circle’s third-quarter results show the same split. USDC in circulation ended September at $73.9 billion, flat from a year earlier, while on-chain USDC volume rose 49% to $13.9 trillion. CEO Jeremy Allaire said, “Balances were flat, but usage continues to grow.” Circle Payments Network reached an annualized $41.3 billion at the end of September.
CoinDesk pointed to several reasons for the stall. Most stablecoins are minted to fund trading and collateral, and trading volumes have fallen. Three-month Treasury bills yield about 4.1%, which makes non-interest-bearing tokens costly to hold, and the GENIUS Act bars issuers from paying interest from January 2027. Standard Chartered’s Geoff Kendrick called the slowdown cyclical and said stablecoin velocity roughly doubled to about 30 times per month.
The article also carries warnings. Payments were only about 0.5% of $97.9 trillion in raw transfers Allium counted, and a June BIS working paper found that treating every transfer as a payment misclassified almost six in ten events. ARP Digital’s Abdulaziz Kanoo noted that raw volume includes exchange movements and bot activity.
Track the market yourself with AiTraderView’s FREE tools: Crypto Cockpit for charts and 75+ indicators, Crypto Screener to find setups, and Crypto Portfolio to follow your holdings. Just create a FREE account and try them yourself!
Sources:
⚠️ RISK WARNING & AI DISCLOSURE
- This information is generated by Artificial Intelligence (AI) and complex algorithms. While advanced, these systems can contain errors or inaccuracies and are for educational purposes only.
- Technical analysis provides no guarantees; this information is purely informative.
- All discussed scenarios are hypothetical and do not constitute predictions or expectations.
- Past performance is not an indicator of future results.
- This is not financial advice and is not intended as a call-to-action for the reader.
- No implicit direction is claimed, and no specific behavior of market participants is suggested.