USDC is pulling further ahead of Tether's USDT by adjusted stablecoin transaction volume, according to Visa's onchain analytics dashboard and a fresh CoinDesk review of the data.

The shift is notable because USDT has historically been the default dollar stablecoin for exchange settlement and offshore crypto liquidity. CoinDesk reported that USDC widened its lead during the first half of 2026, while Visa's dashboard frames the measurement around adjusted onchain activity rather than raw transfer counts. That distinction matters: stablecoin blockchains carry exchange flows, bot activity, internal smart-contract movements and user payments, so raw volume can overstate real settlement use.

Visa says its adjusted methodology is designed to remove inorganic activity from bots and other inflationary patterns. The dashboard uses labeled addresses from Allium Labs, category filters and heuristics such as single-directional volume counting and 30-day thresholds for high-frequency or high-volume addresses.

The conservative takeaway is not that one issuer has won the stablecoin market. Volume share is different from circulating supply, reserve scale, profitability or regulatory reach. But the data adds weight to a narrower point: USDC is becoming more central to actual settlement flows, especially in contexts where regulated payments companies, fintech apps and institutional users are watching stablecoin rails closely.

For developers and payment networks, that changes the integration question. Supporting stablecoins is no longer just about adding the largest token by market cap. It increasingly means choosing rails based on where clean, repeatable transaction activity is concentrating.