USDT added roughly 1.6 million holders over the past week, nearly three times USDC’s 591,100 additions, even as the broader stablecoin market cooled from its May 2026 peak. Tether’s cumulative holder count surpassed 650 million by the end of the second quarter, with quarterly additions consistently exceeding 30 million users. USDT market capitalization stood at approximately $183 billion in mid-August 2026, compared with $72 billion to $74 billion for USDC, making it about 2.5 times larger by total supply. Tether reported approximately $1.5 billion in net operating profit for the second quarter and around $4.1 billion in excess reserves, while 184.6 billion USDT tokens were in circulation on June 30. USDC nevertheless expanded by approximately $800 million in the seven days ending Aug. 20, as Circle issued about $7.5 billion and redeemed approximately $6.7 billion. Its supply was $72.7 billion against approximately $72.9 billion in reserves on Aug. 20 and reached about $73.3 billion in later Aug. 22 estimates. Circle’s USDC Treasury minted $250 million directly on Solana on Aug. 20, contributing to roughly $1.25 billion of Solana issuance in a week, while Solana’s circulating USDC supply reached $8.27 billion across 8.39 million wallets. USDC recorded $2.8 billion in daily decentralized-exchange volume on Aug. 22, and Circle reported $14.8 trillion in USDC on-chain transaction volume in the second quarter, up 151% year over year. The comparison highlights different adoption patterns: USDT remains larger and is gaining users particularly in emerging markets seeking dollar liquidity, while USDC has stronger positioning among institutional desks, regulated platforms and DeFi users. High issuance, holder growth and transaction turnover do not necessarily represent net new capital entering crypto, as activity can include rotation, repeated minting and redemptions, trading, settlement and automated strategies.