Circle’s USDC Stablecoin Sees 18% Growth, Crests $50B in Circulation

The Circle USDC stablecoin has passed $50 billion in total circulation, Coindesk reported Monday (Feb. 28).

The coin is still the second biggest stablecoin by total assets — though it’s moving closer to Tether, the frontrunner.

The total USDC supply grew from $42.4 billion in December 2021 to $50 billion in January. That’s a growth of 18% in just one month, and the report notes that the supply on Circle’s website is even bigger, with $53.3 billion as of Monday.

Circle’s USDC supply leaped almost 100% in the final six months of 2021. Coindesk writes that Tether’s USDT grew by only 25% in the same period of time.

While Tether was still the biggest stablecoin issuer, Circle has 100% of its assets in cash or U.S. bonds, while Tether has $24.2 billion, or 30%, of its assets in commercial paper.

PYMNTS wrote that the USDC coin was “winning the war” for stablecoins, at least on Ethereum.

Read more: In Winning DeFi, Circle’s USDC Shows It Can Be the No. 1 Stablecoin

On Ethereum the coin overtook USDT as of January, with blockchain information tool Etherscan showing 39.92 billion USDC, compared to 39.82 billion USDT.

The report notes that stablecoins are a type of crypto that maintains a one-to-one ratio with the U.S. dollar or other national currencies. It does this by holding a cache of assets such as dollars, Treasury bills and other investments.

PYMNTS also noted that the vast majority of decentralized finance takes place on Ethereum, and stablecoins are a big part of DeFi.

One of the biggest DeFi uses is decentralized lending, which takes collateral in several cryptocurrencies, but makes loans in stablecoins.

The stablecoins can be used for staking, yield farming and liquidity mixing, which are used to earn passive interest of crypto holdings.

That could be why USDC is seeing more growth, as it started 2021 with a $4.1 billion market cap and 2022 with a $42.56 market cap, a 1,000% growth rate.

That might come down to trust, as Circle is viewed as conservative and adhering to the law, in contrast with Tether, which has had some legal troubles and had to pay fines in the last year.