The Stablecoin Market in 2026: The Numbers That Matter

Total supply and growth

DefiLlama's total for USD-pegged stablecoins was about $311.4 billion on 2 October 2026. That is up only about 4% from $298.4 billion a year earlier, after growing from $204.8 billion to $297.5 billion in the first nine months of 2025. The all-time high, about $320.8 billion, came on 17 May 2026.

Date	USD-pegged stablecoin supply (DefiLlama)
1 Mar 2023	$134.5B
1 Jan 2024	$129.8B
1 Jan 2025	$204.8B
18 Jul 2025 (GENIUS Act signed)	$258.9B
2 Oct 2025	$298.4B
17 May 2026 (all-time high)	$320.8B
11 Aug 2026 (2026 low)	$303.7B
2 Oct 2026	$311.4B

Two caveats on the totals. First, DefiLlama's endpoints do not agree exactly: summing each asset's circulating supply gives $313.3 billion, the historical chart gives $311.4 billion, and summing its chain table gives $306.5 billion. We quote the chart figure. Second, non-dollar stablecoins are a rounding error: USD-pegged coins make up over 99% of the total, with euro coins at about €818 million.

By design, DefiLlama classifies $285.4 billion as fiat-backed, $27.6 billion as crypto-backed and $0.26 billion as algorithmic. How each design holds its peg is covered in how stablecoins hold their value.

Top issuers

Tether's USDT has about $184.1 billion in circulation, roughly 59% of the market, and Circle's USDC about $74.2 billion, roughly 24%. Together they hold over four-fifths of supply. Nothing else exceeds $7 billion; the next tier mixes crypto-backed coins with newer fiat-backed entrants.

#	Stablecoin	Issuer	Type (DefiLlama)	Circulating
1	USDT	Tether	Fiat-backed	$184.1B
2	USDC	Circle	Fiat-backed	$74.2B
3	USDS	Sky	Crypto-backed	$6.84B
4	USDe	Ethena	Crypto-backed	$4.90B
5	DAI	Sky (formerly Maker)	Crypto-backed	$4.80B
6	USD1	World Liberty Financial	Fiat-backed	$4.43B
7	USDG	Global Dollar	Fiat-backed	$3.10B
8	PYUSD	PayPal USD	Fiat-backed	$2.85B
9	RLUSD	Ripple	Fiat-backed	$2.51B

DefiLlama's list also includes tokenised Treasury and money-fund products such as Circle's USYC ($2.40B), BlackRock's BUIDL ($2.25B) and Ondo's USDY ($2.20B). USYC and USDY trade above $1 because they accrue yield. They are better thought of as tokenised securities than payment stablecoins, which matters for Stellar below. The GENIUS Act's interest ban (see the GENIUS Act, explained) is what keeps these two categories legally separate in the US.

USDT and USDC have barely moved in a year: USDC's circulating supply was about $73.8 billion on 2 October 2025, against $74.2 billion now.

Where stablecoins live: chains

Ethereum holds about $146.0 billion of USD-pegged stablecoins, 47.6% of DefiLlama's chain total, and Tron about $93.9 billion, 30.6%. Solana, BNB Chain and Hyperliquid follow. DefiLlama tracks stablecoins on 210 chains, but the top two hold over three-quarters of supply.

#	Chain	USD-pegged stablecoins
1	Ethereum	$146.0B
2	Tron	$93.9B
3	Solana	$16.4B
4	BNB Chain	$13.8B
5	Hyperliquid L1	$7.41B
6	Base	$5.12B
7	Arbitrum	$3.96B
8	Polygon	$2.94B
12	XRPL	$1.32B
15	Stellar	$0.90B

The chains specialise. Tron is almost entirely USDT: $92.4 billion of its $93.9 billion. USDC is spread more widely, led by Ethereum ($45.6 billion), Hyperliquid ($7.31 billion), Solana ($7.30 billion) and Base ($4.35 billion). Hyperliquid's position shows how much stablecoin demand is collateral for trading.

USDT's split is the mirror image: about $92.4 billion on Tron, $73.9 billion on Ethereum and $9.2 billion on BNB Chain, with everything else small. DefiLlama lists no USDT on Stellar, which is one reason Stellar's dollar base is built around USDC. For a payments network that matters less than it might seem, because USDC is the coin MoneyGram and most Stellar anchors use, but it does mean Stellar sees little of the trading and exchange-settlement flow that runs on Tron. Chain totals also move when issuers add or retire networks, so a one-month jump on any chain is worth checking against the issuer's own announcements before reading it as organic growth.

Stellar's stablecoin supply

DefiLlama's chain table puts Stellar at about $904 million of USD-pegged stablecoins, 15th of all chains, plus about €23 million of euro coins. The two largest are Ondo's USDY at about $536 million and Circle's USDC at about $341 million; Stellar ranks 11th among chains for USDC.

Stablecoin on Stellar	Circulating on Stellar
USDY (Ondo, yield-bearing)	$536.5M
USDC (Circle)	$341.0M
YLDS	$25.2M
EURCV (Société Générale-FORGE)	€16.9M
EURC (Circle)	€4.8M
AUDD	A$2.5M
EURS	€1.2M

Read the total with care. More than half of it is USDY, a yield-bearing tokenised note that DefiLlama counts as a stablecoin. DefiLlama's history shows USDY on Stellar going from under $1 million at the start of 2026 to over $460 million by June. Over the same chart, Stellar's stablecoin total rose from about $0.23 billion on 1 October 2025 to about $0.96 billion now; DefiLlama's history chart and its chain table differ by about $55 million. Counting only payment-style coins, Stellar's base is under $0.4 billion, led by USDC.

That split reflects what Stellar is used for: payments and ramps on one side (see stablecoins for cross-border payments), and tokenised real-world assets on the other (see RWA tokenization on Stellar). For how individual coins work on the network, see stablecoins on Stellar.

Euro and other currencies

Non-dollar stablecoins remain tiny. DefiLlama counts about €818 million of euro-pegged coins in total, led by Circle's EURC at about €474 million and Société Générale-FORGE's EURCV at about €186 million. Rouble, yen, Swiss franc and sterling coins are each smaller still.

That is despite MiCA giving euro issuers a clear licensing route since mid-2024. The dollar's dominance in stablecoins mirrors its role in trade and crypto trading pairs: the main use of a stablecoin today is to hold or move dollars, so euro coins compete for a much smaller pool of demand. Stellar is unusually euro-heavy relative to its size, with about €23 million across EURCV, EURC and EURS, which reflects its payments and tokenisation focus.

How to read these numbers

Stablecoin supply counts tokens in circulation, not users or payments. Treat totals as an upper bound on dollars in the system, check which products a tracker includes, and remember that the same issuer's coin on many chains is one liability, not several.

• Supply is not activity. A billion dollars of USDC sitting in an exchange's wallet counts the same as a billion paid out in wages. Supply tells you how many dollars are parked on-chain, not how often they move.
• Definitions vary. DefiLlama includes yield-bearing tokenised fund and note products, such as USDY, BUIDL and USYC, in its list. Other trackers exclude them, so totals differ between sources.
• Prices are close to $1, not equal to it. On 2 October 2026 DefiLlama priced USDT at $0.9997 and USDC at $0.9999. Small deviations are normal; what matters is how quickly they close (see how stablecoins hold their value).
• Endpoints disagree. As noted above, three ways of summing the same dataset give totals between $306.5 billion and $313.3 billion. Quote one source consistently and date it.

For a holder, the market totals matter less than the specifics of the coin you use and the venue you hold it on. DeFi risks and the Stellar DeFi guide cover those.

What drove growth, and why it stalled

Regulation, new issuers and trading demand drove 2025's expansion: the EU's MiCA rules and the US GENIUS Act gave issuers legal paths, and dollar coins from PayPal, Ripple, World Liberty and others reached billions. In 2026 supply has gone sideways, with the two largest coins nearly flat.

• Regulatory clarity. MiCA's stablecoin titles have applied since 30 June 2024, and Circle received a French e-money licence covering USDC and EURC on 1 July 2024. The GENIUS Act was signed on 18 July 2025, when supply was $258.9 billion; it reached $298.4 billion by early October 2025. Correlation is not causation, and the Act's rules are still proposals.
• New issuers. USD1, USDG, PYUSD and RLUSD together account for about $12.9 billion.
• Trading venues. About $7.4 billion of stablecoins sit on Hyperliquid L1, a chain built around a derivatives exchange, and Ethena's derivatives-hedged USDe has $4.9 billion in circulation.
• Payments infrastructure. Banks are building their own rails, from JPMorgan's JPMD to Citi Token Services, which may compete with stablecoins rather than feed them (see tokenised deposits vs stablecoins).

Why the plateau? The data does not say, and we will not guess. What it does show is that the 2026 high-low range ($303.7 billion to $320.8 billion) is narrow, and that Treasury advisers' April 2025 projection of about $2 trillion by 2028 would need supply to grow more than sixfold in a little over two years.

The takeaway

The stablecoin market in 2026 is large, concentrated and, for now, flat: two issuers, two chains and $311 billion that has hardly grown this year. Stellar holds under 0.3% of it, and its headline number flatters payment use because of tokenised Treasury products. The figures change daily; check DefiLlama before relying on any of them.

Sources: DefiLlama stablecoins API (stablecoins.llama.fi/stablecoins?includePrices=true, /stablecoinchains, /stablecoincharts/all and /stablecoincharts/Stellar), all as of 2 Oct 2026; GENIUS Act, Public Law 119-27; ESMA (MiCA application dates); CNBC (1 July 2024); Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee presentation (30 April 2025).