USDC just had its best week in a while. Circle’s flagship stablecoin added roughly $1.5 to $2 billion in market capitalization over seven days, the largest gain among major stablecoins during that stretch.
The stablecoin’s total circulation now sits at approximately $72.7 to $73.7 billion as of mid-August 2026. That puts USDC at roughly 24% of the entire stablecoin market, which DeFiLlama pegs at around $303 billion. The broader market grew by about $2.2 billion during the same period, meaning USDC absorbed somewhere between two-thirds and nearly all of the fresh capital flowing into dollar-pegged tokens.
USDC’s quiet climb
At $73 billion in circulation, USDC is comfortably the second-largest stablecoin behind Tether’s USDT. Circle publishes regular attestations of its reserves, a practice that has become increasingly important as regulators worldwide sharpen their focus on stablecoin issuers.
Circle Internet Group, the publicly traded company behind USDC, carries a market capitalization of roughly $21 to $24 billion under the ticker CRCL. Those ambitions are about to get more concrete. Circle plans to launch the mainnet for its Arc blockchain in September 2026, a move designed to give the company more control over the infrastructure layer where USDC transactions happen.
