USDC issuer Circle has been minting a large number of its native stablecoin closing the gap with Tether’s USDT. Just over the past week, the stablecoin firm has minted more than 5 billion USDC on the Solana network, amid high demand following the launch of TRUMP meme coin. This shows that Circle is increasing its market footprint and can probably eat partially into Tether’s market cap by being MiCA compliant. Circle USDC Stablecoin Increases Market Footprint Stablecoin firm Circle has been on a USDC minting spree since the beginning of 2025. As a result, the USDC market cap has surged by 8% adding $8 billion and moving past $52 billion. As per on-chain data, a large part of this minting has happened over the past week. On-chain data shows that within a week, the USDC market cap has surged by another $5 billion. Blockchain analytics platform Arkham reports that Circle has minted 250 million USDC on the Solana blockchain today. This latest issuance contributes to a cumulative total of 5 billion USDC minted on Solana since 2025, underscoring the stablecoin issuer’s growing activity on the network. Source: CoinMarketcap The move highlights Circle’s continued commitment to expanding its presence on Solana, amid growing demand for USDC in decentralized finance (DeFi) and other applications. Interestingly, the surge in USDC minting came soon after the launch of the TRUMP meme coin triggering a massive frenzy in the market. Closing the Gap With Tether’s USDT With a large number of USDT mints in the first month of 2025, Circle has been closing the gap with its top rival Tether, the issuer of USDT stablecoin. While Circle’s market cap surged in January this month, Tether hasn’t made any move with its market cap staying steady at $139.27 billion. The total circulating supply of USDC has reached 51.9 billion, backed by reserves totaling approximately $52.1 billion. These reserves include $6.1 billion in cash and $46.1 billion managed within the Circle Reserve Fund. The surge comes as the USDC stablecoin issuer is undertaking a few adoption-boosting measures, such as the recent acquisition of Hashnote , a leading issuer of tokenized real-world assets. However, Circle’s USDC is still less than 50% the size of Tether’s USDT. Furthermore, over the last year, the USDC stablecoin market cap has doubled, while USDT also clocked a hefty 50% surge in its market cap now reaching $140 billion. Source: CoinMarketCap Circle Introducing Paymaster to Boost USDC Adoption Circle, the issuer of the $48 billion USDC stablecoin, has launched “Paymaster,” a new feature enabling users to pay transaction fees on Arbitrum and Base using USDC instead of ether (ETH). Paymaster processes USDC payments and converts them into native tokens to settle fees with blockchain validators, the company explained in a blog post. The service, set to expand to Ethereum, Polygon POS, and Solana, charges users a fee equal to 10% of the gas cost per transaction. However, this fee will be waived until June 30 to promote early adoption. The post Circle’s USDC Closes Gap With Tether’s USDT With 8 Billion Mints in 2025 appeared first on CoinGape .
