---
title: "Where stablecoins stand in September 2026"
author: Mariusz Szyma
date: 2026-09-24
lang: en
canonical: https://szyma.co/en/blog/stablecoins/state-of-the-market/
series: "Stablecoins: Past, Present and Future"
series_part: 7/12
series_url: https://szyma.co/en/blog/stablecoins/
data_as_of: 4–10 Sep 2026
---

# Where stablecoins stand in September 2026

About 311 bn USD of dollar stablecoins existed on 4 September 2026, two tokens made up more than four fifths of that, and two blockchains held most of it. This chapter is the course's dated snapshot: how big the market is, who issues it, where it lives, what holds each peg, and how to read the numbers without being fooled by them. Every figure here carries its date, because in this market a table goes stale in weeks.

## What you'll learn

- Describe the size of the stablecoin market in September 2026 and explain why it stopped growing in May.
- Name the issuers behind the largest tokens and measure how concentrated the market is.
- Explain why Ethereum and Tron hold most stablecoins, and why they hold them for different jobs.
- Sort the market by the mechanism behind each peg, and place non-dollar stablecoins in it.
- Tell supply, usage and velocity apart when someone quotes "the size of the stablecoin market".

## Six years of growth, then a plateau

A **stablecoin** is a token on a blockchain that aims to stay worth one unit of a currency, almost always one US dollar, because someone stands ready to swap it for that dollar. [The first chapter](/en/blog/stablecoins/what-one-usdc-means/) takes that promise apart. Here the question is simpler: how many of these tokens exist.

**Supply** is the number of tokens in circulation. For a dollar stablecoin, supply in tokens and value in dollars are the same number, so analysts use "supply" and "market cap" interchangeably. The standard public count comes from DefiLlama, a free dashboard that adds up every tracked token on every chain.

The long run is a steep climb. Dollar stablecoin supply was about 4 bn USD in January 2020 and about 150 bn USD by December 2021, according to DefiLlama. Growth paused after the collapse of the algorithmic token TerraUSD in May 2022 and the Silicon Valley Bank scare around USDC in March 2023, both covered in [the history chapter](/en/blog/stablecoins/history/), and then resumed.

The record came on 17 May 2026, when DefiLlama's daily chart showed just under 321 bn USD. By 4 September 2026 the figure was about 311 bn USD, roughly 3% lower. That is small in percentage terms. What makes it notable is that it happened without a crash: no issuer failed, no large token broke its peg.

![Dollar stablecoin supply rose from about 4 bn USD in January 2020 to a record of about 321 bn USD on 17 May 2026, then slipped to about 311 bn USD by 4 Sep 2026, on DefiLlama readings.](https://szyma.co/blog/img/stablecoin-supply-snapshots.26a469d0.svg)

The plateau has a clear shape once you look token by token. The two leaders, USDT and USDC, barely moved in 2026: each was within about 2% of where it started the year. The tokens that shrank were the ones people held for a payout. USDe, whose holders earn a return from a derivatives trade, fell by about a third, and PayPal's PYUSD, which carries a loyalty reward, fell by about a sixth.

![USDT and USDC were almost flat from 1 Jan to 4 Sep 2026, USDe and PYUSD shrank, and small new tokens and tokenized Treasury funds grew fastest, on the author's calculation from DefiLlama series.](https://szyma.co/blog/img/token-supply-change-2026.9ee346f1.svg)

A popular explanation says the money rotated into tokenized Treasury funds, which grew fast in 2026. The sizes do not support it. Stablecoin supply fell by roughly 10 bn USD from the May peak, while the whole tokenized Treasury category grew by less than 1 bn USD between May and August, according to rwa.xyz. Some money may have made that move, but it cannot be the main story.

> **My take:** The 2026 plateau reads as a test of what demand is made of. Tokens held because they are useful (for trading, for moving dollars, for saving outside a weak currency) held steady. Tokens held because they paid a return lost holders as those returns fell. The business side of this is the subject of [the next chapter](/en/blog/stablecoins/the-business/).

## Who issues the dollars

**The issuer** is the company or protocol that creates the token and owes the holder the promised redemption. A handful of issuers account for almost all supply, and the ranking has been stable for years at the top and restless below it.

| Token | Issuer | Supply, 4 Sep 2026 | Share of USD-pegged supply |
|---|---|---|---|
| USDT | [Tether](/en/blog/companies/tether/) | 183.3 bn USD | 58.9% |
| USDC | [Circle](/en/blog/companies/circle/) | 74.5 bn USD | 23.9% |
| USDS | [Sky](/en/blog/companies/sky/) (formerly MakerDAO) | 6.6 bn USD | 2.1% |
| USDe | [Ethena](/en/blog/companies/ethena/) | 4.3 bn USD | 1.4% |
| USD1 | World Liberty Financial, with BitGo as custodian | 4.2 bn USD | 1.4% |
| USDG | [Paxos](/en/blog/companies/paxos/), for the Global Dollar Network | 3.2 bn USD | 1.0% |
| PYUSD | Paxos, for [PayPal](/en/blog/companies/paypal/) | 3.0 bn USD | 1.0% |
| RLUSD | Ripple | 2.4 bn USD | 0.8% |
| Everything else | Several hundred tokens | about 30 bn USD | about 9.5% |

*Source: DefiLlama, read 4 September 2026. Shares divide by 311.2 bn USD of USD-pegged supply. "Everything else" includes Sky's older DAI token and tokenized Treasury funds that DefiLlama lists alongside stablecoins.*

![USDT and USDC dwarf every other dollar stablecoin; the next six tokens each held between 2.4 and 6.6 bn USD on 4 Sep 2026, according to DefiLlama.](https://szyma.co/blog/img/largest-dollar-tokens-2026.6fd505ec.svg)

Three things stand out. First, Tether and Circle together hold about 83% of the market. Second, most of the names below them are less than three years old: USDG launched in November 2024, RLUSD in December 2024 and USD1 in March 2025. Third, two of them, USDG and PYUSD, come from the same issuer. Paxos rents out its licence and reserve management to companies that want their own branded dollar.

**Market concentration** is how much of a market the largest players hold. Economists measure it with the **Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI)**: square each firm's percentage share and add the results, so a monopoly scores 10,000. US competition authorities treat a score above 1,800 as highly concentrated. On the 4 September reading the dollar stablecoin market scored about 4,059, more than twice that line.

> **Watch out:** A token's share depends on the total it is divided by, and aggregators disagree about that total. On 10 September 2026 DefiLlama counted about 311 bn USD of dollar stablecoins, while StableCoin.com counted about 291 bn USD. Both showed almost the same USDT and USDC balances, so the two leaders' combined share came out near 83% on one site and 88% on the other. Check the denominator before quoting a share.

## Where the tokens live

A stablecoin is issued on one or more **blockchains**, the shared ledgers that record who holds which tokens. The same issuer can mint USDC natively on Ethereum, Solana, Base and many others, and each chain's balance is counted separately. [The chains chapter](/en/blog/stablecoins/chains-and-distribution/) explains how tokens move between them. The snapshot is below.

![Ethereum held about 147 bn USD of stablecoins and Tron about 94 bn USD on 4 Sep 2026, with every other chain far behind, according to DefiLlama.](https://szyma.co/blog/img/stablecoin-supply-by-chain-2026.cf42065a.svg)

Ethereum held about 48% of all stablecoins on 4 September 2026 and Tron about 31%, according to DefiLlama. Those two numbers hide two different businesses. Ethereum is where stablecoins serve as collateral in lending protocols, as reserves for institutions and as the base for tokenized funds. Tron is where people send USDT to each other: CoinDesk Research found in July 2026 that 93% of stablecoin transfer volume on Tron was person to person, the highest share of any chain it tracked.

Tron is also almost entirely one token. About 98% of its stablecoin supply is USDT, and it holds more USDT than Ethereum does: about 50% of all USDT against about 40% on Ethereum. Hyperliquid, a blockchain built for trading perpetual futures, is the mirror image: about 7 bn USD of stablecoins, nearly all USDC, used as margin for trading.

> **Example:** On 4 September 2026 Hyperliquid held more USDC than Base and Arbitrum combined, according to DefiLlama. A chain that did not exist in 2022 became the third home of USDC because traders need a dollar to post as margin, and that dollar is USDC.

## What holds each peg

**The peg** is the target price, usually 1.00 USD, and the mechanism that defends it is the most useful way to sort stablecoins. [The chapter on pegs](/en/blog/stablecoins/types-and-pegs/) walks through five designs in depth. DefiLlama uses a simpler three-bucket split, and even that shows how lopsided the market is.

| DefiLlama bucket | Tokens tracked | Supply, 4 Sep 2026 | Typical examples |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fiat-backed | 90 | 285.0 bn USD | USDT, USDC, USD1, USDG, PYUSD, RLUSD |
| Crypto-backed | 221 | 25.5 bn USD | USDS, DAI, USDe, GHO, crvUSD |
| Algorithmic | 23 | 0.7 bn USD | small, mostly experimental tokens |

*Source: DefiLlama, read 4 September 2026.*

**Fiat-backed** stablecoins hold cash, Treasury bills and similar safe assets at a company, and let verified clients swap tokens for dollars. They are about 91% of supply. **Crypto-backed** stablecoins are created against deposits of other crypto assets, usually worth more than the stablecoins issued. **Algorithmic** stablecoins have no outside reserve and rely on a second token to absorb losses; after TerraUSD fell from about 18 bn USD to almost nothing in May 2022, the category never recovered.

The crypto-backed bucket mixes very different machines. USDS from Sky backs its dollars with a blend of crypto loans and tokenized real-world assets. USDe from Ethena holds crypto and shorts the same amount in futures markets, a **delta-neutral hedge** whose value stays flat as long as the hedge holds. Both land in one DefiLlama bucket, but they fail in different ways, which is why this course treats them separately.

The headline total also carries a few things that are not stablecoins in the strict sense. DefiLlama lists tokenized money-market and Treasury funds such as BlackRock's BUIDL, Circle's USYC and Ondo's USDY, whose share price rises as interest accrues instead of staying at 1.00 USD. On 4 September 2026 the tokens trading outside a 0.98 to 1.02 USD band were worth about 6.7 bn USD, a group that also includes euro tokens priced in dollars. That does not change the picture at the top, but it explains part of the gap between aggregators. The funds themselves belong to the RWA series, starting with [what a tokenized real-world asset is](/en/blog/rwa/what-is-an-rwa/).

## Beyond the dollar

Stablecoins in other currencies exist, and they are tiny. On 4 September 2026 about 99.7% of all stablecoin supply was pegged to the US dollar, according to DefiLlama. When I read DefiLlama's list again on 24 September 2026, all non-dollar stablecoins together came to about 1 bn USD.

The euro is almost all of that remainder. Circle's EURC was the largest euro token, at about 0.5 bn USD, followed by EURCV from Société Générale-FORGE, the only large European bank that issues its own public stablecoin. Swiss franc, pound and Singapore dollar tokens each measured in tens of millions. Japan's first regulated yen stablecoin, JPYC, launched on 27 October 2025 but remains very small on public dashboards.

The reason is not a lack of rules. The EU's Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation (MiCA) has licensed more than twenty issuers of **e-money tokens**, its name for a stablecoin backed one to one by a single currency, many of them in euros. What the euro tokens lack is demand: people outside the eurozone who want to hold euros on a blockchain are few, while demand for digital dollars comes from traders, exporters and savers all over the world. [The regulation chapter](/en/blog/stablecoins/regulation/) covers how MiCA and the US GENIUS Act shape who can issue.

> **My take:** A euro stablecoin market worth well under 1% of the dollar one is the strongest evidence that stablecoins spread the dollar rather than money in general. Regulation can make a non-dollar token legal. It has not, so far, made one wanted.

## How to read these numbers

Supply is the number everyone quotes, and it answers only one question: how many dollar tokens exist. Two other measures matter as much, and they tell different stories.

**Usage** is how much value moves between people and businesses. Gross on-chain transfer volume for stablecoins was about 33 to 35 tn USD in 2025, according to the Bank for International Settlements and Visa with Artemis. Most of that is exchanges, trading bots and wallets moving money to themselves. McKinsey and Artemis estimated that payments for goods, services and wages came to about 390 bn USD in 2025. [The payments chapter](/en/blog/stablecoins/payments/) shows how the first number shrinks into the second.

**Velocity** is how many times a typical token changes hands in a period: transfer volume divided by supply. It separates a token that sits in a vault from one that works. Rough arithmetic on the numbers above is enough to see the spread.

| Measure | Rough 2025 value | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|
| Gross transfers ÷ supply | about 100 times a year | Tokens move constantly, mostly inside trading and exchange plumbing |
| Payments ÷ supply | about once a year | Payments between distinct parties are still a thin slice |
| USDT on Tron, transfers ÷ supply | about 80 times a year | The P2P chain turns its tokens over fast |

*Author's arithmetic on BIS, Visa/Artemis, McKinsey/Artemis and Messari 2025 figures, with supply taken at roughly 300 bn USD overall and under 100 bn USD of USDT on Tron. Orders of magnitude only.*

The three measures answer three questions. Supply tells you how much trust in issuers exists, since every token is a claim someone chose to hold. Usage tells you how much economic activity the tokens carry. Velocity tells you whether a token is money in motion or money parked. A token can lead on one and lag on the others: tokenized Treasury funds grew fast in 2026 but barely move, while USDT on Tron is modest next to the whole market and moves constantly.

> **Example:** Messari counted about 7.9 tn USD of USDT transfers on Tron in 2025. Divided by the tens of billions of USDT on that chain, each token changed hands roughly eighty times in the year. The same dollar held in a tokenized Treasury fund would typically sit still for months.

## What to watch next

- **A new supply record above the May 2026 peak**: it would show the plateau was a pause. A further slide, with no crash, would show that part of 2025's growth was paid-for demand that has now left.
- **The share of the top two tokens**: if USDT and USDC fall clearly below 80% combined, the newer issuers (USDG, USD1, RLUSD) are winning real distribution. If it creeps back toward 90%, scale is winning.
- **US interest rates**: issuer revenue and the payouts on yield-bearing tokens both follow short-term rates, so each cut changes which tokens people keep.
- **Tron's share of USDT**: it measures whether person-to-person dollars keep favouring the cheapest reliable chain, or move to newer payment-focused chains.
- **Euro stablecoin supply above a few billion USD**: that would be the first sign that MiCA's licences are turning into demand.

## Key takeaways

1. The stablecoin market is a dollar market: almost all supply is pegged to the US dollar, and non-dollar tokens remain a rounding error.
2. Supply peaked in May 2026 and slipped without a crash, and the decline came from tokens held for a payout, while the two leading tokens held steady.
3. The market is highly concentrated by any standard measure, with Tether and Circle holding about four fifths, and most challengers are less than three years old.
4. Ethereum and Tron hold most stablecoins for different jobs: Ethereum for collateral and institutions, Tron for people sending USDT to each other.
5. Fiat-backed tokens dominate, and aggregator categories such as "crypto-backed" can hide very different mechanisms under one label.
6. Always check a headline's denominator and date, because aggregators count different sets of tokens.
7. Supply, usage and velocity answer different questions, and a serious reading of the market uses all three.

## Glossary

- **Supply**: the number of tokens in circulation. For a dollar stablecoin it equals the dollar value, so it is also called market cap.
- **Issuer**: the company or protocol that creates a stablecoin and owes holders its redemption promise.
- **Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI)**: a concentration score made by squaring each firm's percentage share and adding them up; 10,000 is a monopoly.
- **Fiat-backed stablecoin**: a token backed by cash and safe short-term assets held by a company, such as USDT or USDC.
- **Crypto-backed stablecoin**: a token created against deposits of other crypto assets, such as DAI or USDS.
- **Delta-neutral hedge**: holding an asset and shorting the same amount of it, so that price moves cancel out; the basis of Ethena's USDe.
- **E-money token**: the EU's legal term for a stablecoin backed one to one by a single official currency.
- **Velocity**: how many times a token changes hands in a period, calculated as transfer volume divided by supply.

## Go deeper

- [How stablecoin issuers make money](/en/blog/stablecoins/the-business/): why the leaders' revenue follows interest rates.
- [Where stablecoins are actually used](/en/blog/stablecoins/payments/): the funnel from 35 tn USD of transfers to real payments.
- [Which chains stablecoins live on, and who distributes them](/en/blog/stablecoins/chains-and-distribution/): Tron, Ethereum and the fight for distribution.
- [Tether](/en/blog/companies/tether/) and [Circle](/en/blog/companies/circle/): profiles of the two issuers that hold most of the market.
- 🟢 DefiLlama, stablecoin dashboard, https://defillama.com/stablecoins
- 🟢 DefiLlama, stablecoins by chain, https://defillama.com/stablecoins/chains

## Sources

- 🟢 DefiLlama, stablecoin supply by token, chain and peg mechanism, read 4 September 2026 and 10 September 2026, https://defillama.com/stablecoins
- 🟢 DefiLlama, historical stablecoin supply chart, read 10 September 2026, https://stablecoins.llama.fi/stablecoincharts/all
- 🟢 Author's read of the DefiLlama stablecoin API, non-dollar pegs, 24 September 2026, https://stablecoins.llama.fi/stablecoins
- 🟢 US Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission, "Merger Guidelines", 18 December 2023, https://www.justice.gov/atr/2023-merger-guidelines
- 🟡 StableCoin.com, stablecoin market cap page, read 10 September 2026, https://stablecoin.com/market-cap/
- 🟡 CoinDesk Research, "Tron Network Q2 2026", 21 July 2026
- 🟡 rwa.xyz, tokenized US Treasuries dashboard, May to August 2026, https://app.rwa.xyz/treasuries
- 🟢 Bank for International Settlements, Pablo Hernández de Cos, "Stablecoins: framing the debate", April 2026, https://www.bis.org
- 🟡 McKinsey & Company and Artemis Analytics, "Stablecoins find their niche", February 2026
- 🟡 Visa and Artemis, Visa Onchain Analytics dashboard, 2026, https://visaonchainanalytics.com
- 🟡 Messari, "2025 Stablecoin Year-End Report", 7 January 2026
- 🟢 Société Générale-FORGE, EURCV dashboard, read 10 September 2026, https://www.sgforge.com
- 🟢 Paxos, USDG and PYUSD product pages, read 10 September 2026, https://paxos.com
- 🟢 Ripple, RLUSD product page, read 10 September 2026, https://ripple.com/solutions/stablecoin/

## Caveats

- Aggregators disagree on the total by up to about 7%, because they track different sets of tokens. This chapter uses DefiLlama throughout so that shares add up.
- The velocity table is rough arithmetic meant to show orders of magnitude, not a published statistic.