USDT and USDC Account for About 90% of Major Stablecoins
Cointelegraph reports that USDT and USDC control approximately 94% of the circulating stablecoin supply. When considering only "major stablecoins," the remaining issuers account for about 6%.
Broader market tracking shows that by around September 11, 2026, the total scale of stablecoins is expected to be about $300 billion to $311 billion. Among these, USDT is estimated to be around $181 billion to $183 billion, accounting for about 60%; USDC is about $74.2 billion to $74.3 billion, making up approximately 24.5%. Together, they account for about 85%, with the remaining 15% from other sources. USDT's share has decreased by about 0.5 percentage points over the past 90 days. The third tier includes Sky's USDS at about $6.7 billion, Ethena's USDe at about $4.6 billion, Dai at about $4.6 billion, as well as USD1, USDG, PayPal's PyUSD, and Ripple's RLUSD. Dollar stablecoins account for about 1.34% of the U.S. M2 money supply. Non-dollar stablecoins make up less than 0.5% of the total.
The GENIUS Act has established rules for payment stablecoins, prohibiting interest payments to holders at the issuance end. Tether and Circle remain the default gateways for trading, settlement, and on-chain dollars. New coins are competing for the remaining share, but it is difficult to break the network effects of the two giants solely based on branding.
Buyers are traders, exchanges, and payment channels that require depth and redemption certainty; sellers are Tether and Circle's reserve and minting machines. The driving force is the demand for trading settlements, not the launch of new coins. Funds are entering on-chain dollars supported by treasury bonds and cash reserves. The beneficiaries are the two issuers that already dominate the channels; the pressure is on newcomers trying to capture market share within the 6% to 15% gap.
Source: Public Information
ABAB AI Insight
94% and 85% do not share the same denominator. Narrowing down to "major stablecoins" makes the duopoly more glaring; broadening to all circulating stablecoins reveals the synthetic dollars, algorithmic stablecoins, and payment stablecoins in the third tier. Regardless of the metric, the settlement layer has already been harvested by two players: one focused on offshore trading depth, the other on regulated minting and dollar clearing. Newcomers must replicate liquidity, redemption windows, and compliance identities simultaneously, which is costlier than issuing another dollar-pegged token.
The capital path is to exchange reserve assets for minting rights. A scale of $300 billion means that treasury bonds and cash reserves have grown large enough to influence short-term dollar asset demand. The GENIUS Act restricts interest payments at the issuance end but does not dismantle the network of the two giants. Circle is pursuing public company and banking channels, while Tether is focused on global trading pairs. PayPal, Ripple, and Ethena seek scenarios, not immediate replacements for quoted currencies.
In comparison to the duopoly of credit card organizations and the concentration of top money market funds: standard settlement tools will lock in shares with issuers that can redeem at any time. The industry stage is that the total exceeds $300 billion, regulations begin to write payment-type rules, yet shares remain stagnant with the two players. Open-source models and new chains change the application layer but do not alter the step of "which dollar to convert first."
The structural change is capital concentration. The mechanism is: trading pairs, market-making, and redemption windows mutually reinforce each other, making it difficult for new coins to cut in from the middle; they can only enter from the margins. Whoever controls the default dollar controls the unit of account in on-chain finance.
ABAB News · Cognitive Law
- The concentration of the settlement layer means that no matter how lively the application layer is, it must first convert to the leading dollar.
- As the denominator narrows, the duopoly appears more like a law.
- New stablecoins sell scenarios, not immediate replacements for quoted currencies.