Key Takeaway:
- USDC overtook USDT in adjusted, real-activity volume, JPMorgan reports year-to-date.
- Visa shows $1.2T USDC adjusted volume in February 2026, doubling January.
- Institutional adoption, compliance, and MiCA alignment drove a structural shift to USDC.
According to JPMorgan, USD Coin (USDC) has overtaken Tether (USDT) on an adjusted, real-activity basis in recent year‑to‑date tracking. The bank’s analysts link the shift to clearer regulation and an institutional tilt toward transparent, compliant stablecoins, including alignment with Europe’s MiCA regime. That framing squarely positions the move as structural rather than cyclical.
Based on data from Visa’s onchain analytics dashboard, USDC processed about $1.2 trillion in adjusted volume in February 2026, more than double January’s tally. The dashboard also shows USDC outpacing USDT for two consecutive months on this adjusted measure. Those readings corroborate the YTD lead in USDC vs USDT adjusted volume.
What is driving the divergence is institutional stablecoin adoption in payments, treasury settlement, and cross‑border flows, which rewards compliance and auditability. In practice, USDC’s tokens appear to turn over more frequently, higher velocity, even with a smaller market cap than USDT. That usage mix helps explain why adjusted volume leadership can diverge from supply share.
Adjusted stablecoin volume strips out non‑economic activity such as bot loops, address churn, and intra‑exchange rebalancing to approximate real transactions. By filtering noise, it emphasizes settlement and payment flows rather than speculative traffic. For institutions, this metric is closer to a money‑movement indicator than a trading proxy.
Graham Cooke, who leads analytics at Allium Labs, said: “USDC just processed $1.2 trillion in adjusted volume in a single month. … That’s not a blip. That’s a regime change.”
Why it matters: adjusted volume is a better barometer of stablecoin utility in commerce and settlement. If the trend persists, exchanges, fintechs, and corporates could prioritize rails where compliance and transparency are strongest, though methodologies and chain coverage differ across data providers. As always, figures should be read as indicative, not definitive benchmarks.
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