Points of Focus

• Banks moved from stablecoin pilots to live institutional infrastructure.
• USDC widened its lead over USDT in adjusted on-chain volume.
• Total stablecoin transaction volume hit a record $8.8 trillion YTD.

Across July 3–9, stablecoins looked more like financial infrastructure: banks deepened USDC access, regulators reopened core rulebooks, and analysts argued over whether sanctioned stablecoin activity is real or inflated. 

Banks stop asking ‘if’ and start building around stablecoins 

Standard Chartered and BNY expanded institutional stablecoin services around Circle’s USDC, giving clients access to custody, minting, redemption, and bank-integrated workflows rather than forcing institutions to build their own direct crypto rails. Banks are no longer asking whether stablecoins belong in finance, but how they fit into the networks forming around them. That fits with findings that 88% of businesses plan to use stablecoins within a year.

Standard Chartered’s Circle partnership gives eligible institutional clients access to USDC minting and redemption through a single onboarding and service experience, while BNY added USDC as the first stablecoin on its Digital Asset Custody platform.

With the moves, regulated banks are choosing established stablecoin networks instead of launching every product from scratch. USDC’s regulatory positioning is turning into a distribution advantage, and the next stage of competition may be less about the token itself and more about who controls the surrounding network: custody, reserves, redemption, liquidity, compliance, and institutional access.

Market snapshot: supply, volume and dominance this week

• Total supply: $311.96B | +0.14% 7d
• USDT dominance: 59.02% | USDC supply: $73.29B
• USDT supply: $184.11B
• On-chain volume: $1.79T adjusted in June | +63% vs May 

The biggest move of the week comes from Visa, highlighting just how much the stablecoin market grew in the first half of 2026. 

• In 2024, total adjusted stablecoin volume reached $5.8 trillion.
• In 2025, volume hit a record $10.8 trillion.
• YTD 2026 – already $8.82 trillion, only $2 trillion less than last year’s record.

Quick hits

Between July 3-9, the big moves came from all corners of the stablecoin world.

• Tether remained the dominant supply leader, but former Tether CIO Richard Heathcote plans to sell part of his 1.26% stake. The move comes after Tether had previously scaled back from a much larger fundraising plan after investor resistance to a proposed $500B valuation, then followed up with a smaller $5B plan. 
• Cloudfare opens a waitlist for a new stablecoin Monetization Gateway, enabling micropayments for content and APIs.
• Rivals are emerging to challenge Tether and Circle; Open Standard partnered with over 140 financial institutions to announce the launch of a new stablecoin called Open USD, or OUSD.
• The sanctioned Russian ruble-pegged stablecoin A7A5 became a test case for how hard stablecoin volume is to verify. Its issuer claimed about $205M in average daily volume and $34.4B processed between January 1 and June 17, but TRM Labs placed average daily volume closer to $75M and said roughly 34% of observed volume appeared circular. 

MiCA moved back into review mode almost immediately after full implementation

The European Commission is looking at whether MiCA should expand to cover tokenization and non-EU stablecoin issuers. The debate highlights an ongoing tension: MiCA has rules, but global stablecoins do not always fit neatly inside one jurisdiction’s perimeter.

Globally, India added another warning signal, with the country’s central bank continuing to favour a restrictive crypto policy, with concerns extending to stablecoins and financial stability. While the US is moving toward bank-style regulation and market integration, Europe is refining MiCA, while some large emerging markets still see private stablecoins as a monetary and banking risk.

Quote of the week 

“One metric I always pay attention to is value returned to users.

Since 2022, Binance Earn has distributed over US$1.2B to stablecoin holders.

The long-term opportunity isn’t just about access to markets – it’s about helping users put their assets to work.” — Yi He, Co-Founder & Chief Customer Service Officer at Binance

Stablecoin economics are shaping the shifting crypto markets. Issuers earn on reserves, exchanges earn through distribution, banks fear deposit flight, and users increasingly expect some return on idle digital dollars. 

What to watch next week

Keep an eye on the USDT dominance chart to see if USDC continues to make up ground. The odds for the Clarity Act to become law in 2026 are now about 50/50 as the debate increases. Watch for more industry leaders to stake out clear positions on the issues.

Stablecoin transaction volume has peaked on a 4-month cycle since last fall. Will July buck the trend, or is October set to mark the next high point?