Stablecoin weekly: USDT drops $1.21B as the Big-3 falls $2.13B
The Big-3 stablecoin float fell $2.13B to $259.669B as USDT shed $1.21B in its steepest week since July and USDC lost $931M, even after Circle minted $4,250.0M of USDC on Solana.
The aggregate supply of the three largest stablecoins closed the seven days to October 21, 2026 at 08:00 (UTC−05:00) at $259.669B, down $2,130.5M, or 0.81%, from a week earlier 1. USDT accounted for $1,214.3M of the decline and USDC for $931.1M, while DAI added $14.9M 1. This is a different shape from last week, when USDC alone carried the fall.
USDT's drop is the steepest week it has had since the week ended July 8, measured on DeFiLlama's daily chain-level series. Four chains supplied $1,181.5M of it: Tron gave back $534.7M, Ethereum $389.5M, OP Mainnet $157.4M and Solana $99.9M 1. Tron had added $465.4M in the week before.
USDC's decline came on a week when Circle minted $4,250.0M of new USDC, all of it on Solana. The float still fell $931.1M 1. Circle's own per-chain API, which refreshes through the day, put total USDC at $72.116B at 13:05 UTC on October 21, 0.10% below the DeFiLlama figure 2.
Prices rose while the float shrank. Bitcoin traded at $83,437.44, up 1.38% over the seven days, and Ethereum at $2,472.20, up 0.73% 34. Sentiment read 63, Greed, against 62 a week earlier 5.
Big-3 aggregate supply movements
| Asset | Current supply | Previous-week supply | 7-day change | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| USDT | $182.728B | $183.942B | −$1,214.3M | −0.66% |
| USDC | $72.186B | $73.117B | −$931.1M | −1.27% |
| DAI | $4.755B | $4.740B | +$14.9M | +0.31% |
| Total Big-3 | $259.669B | $261.799B | −$2,130.5M | −0.81% |
Both weeks come from one asset-level response that reports them together 1. Over 30 days the Big-3 is $2,702.7M smaller: USDC down $2,216.9M and USDT down $442.1M, against DAI down $43.6M 1. The final day removed $243.3M, $233.9M of it USDT.
A second supply series agrees on direction and, for USDC, on size. CoinMetrics puts USDC at $62.979B on October 20 against $64.002B on October 14, a fall of $1,023.0M 6. Its USDT series moved by less than 0.01%, from $189.134B to $189.134B 7. Its levels sit above DeFiLlama's, so treat it as corroboration of direction rather than of level.
Chain-level supply distribution
A chain balance is where a stablecoin sits at the snapshot moment. Each table names the chains with the largest weekly moves plus one residual row, ordered by the size of the change.
USDT
| Chain | Current supply | Previous-week supply | 7-day change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tron | $92.535B | $93.070B | −$534.7M |
| Ethereum | $72.899B | $73.288B | −$389.5M |
| OP Mainnet | $296.4M | $453.8M | −$157.4M |
| Solana | $2.692B | $2.792B | −$99.9M |
| Plasma | $708.2M | $754.9M | −$46.8M |
| Aptos | $466.5M | $431.5M | +$35.0M |
| TON | $570.2M | $550.2M | +$20.0M |
| Polygon | $708.4M | $724.0M | −$15.6M |
| Berachain | $24.2M | $39.2M | −$15.0M |
| X Layer | $129.8M | $118.9M | +$10.9M |
| Avalanche | $310.9M | $320.9M | −$10.0M |
| Mantle | $449.9M | $441.4M | +$8.5M |
| Other chains (118) | $10.937B | $10.957B | −$19.6M |
Tron's $534.7M loss is the largest single-chain move in this snapshot, and it leaves the USDT balance there at $92.535B against Ethereum's $72.899B 8. OP Mainnet's balance is now $296.4M, less than two-thirds of its level last week. Inside the residual bucket, the biggest moves were Ink down $6.0M and Monad down $4.2M, both small next to the named rows.
USDC
| Chain | Current supply | Previous-week supply | 7-day change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ethereum | $44.403B | $44.889B | −$486.2M |
| Arc | $755.2M | $570.8M | +$184.4M |
| Solana | $6.931B | $7.111B | −$180.5M |
| Hyperliquid L1 | $6.933B | $7.079B | −$145.5M |
| Base | $4.290B | $4.412B | −$121.4M |
| X Layer | $37.1M | $144.8M | −$107.7M |
| Aptos | $209.1M | $297.7M | −$88.6M |
| Arbitrum | $2.268B | $2.321B | −$53.2M |
| Sui | $375.5M | $327.3M | +$48.2M |
| Sonic | $110.9M | $158.7M | −$47.9M |
| Pharos | $60.6M | $18.2M | +$42.4M |
| Stellar | $437.7M | $397.4M | +$40.3M |
| Algorand | $96.6M | $76.1M | +$20.5M |
| Other chains (144) | $5.278B | $5.314B | −$35.9M |
Eight chains gave back $1,231.0M between them and five added $335.8M; the 144 remaining chains net −$35.9M, which brings the asset to its $931.1M decline 9. Arc, the Layer 1 Circle launched in September, added $184.4M for a second consecutive weekly gain and now holds $755.2M. X Layer lost three-quarters of its balance in a week and Aptos 30%.
DAI
| Chain | Current supply | Previous-week supply | 7-day change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ethereum | $4.182B | $4.166B | +$15.8M |
| PulseChain | $10.9M | $11.9M | −$1.1M |
| Polygon | $443.3M | $443.1M | +$0.1M |
| Other chains (46) | $119.4M | $119.4M | −$0.0M |
DAI's $14.9M weekly gain is a single-chain move: Ethereum added $15.8M and every other chain was close to unchanged 10. At this size, DAI's week carries no signal about buying power.
Bridge-received supply
The same endpoints separate each chain's balance into the part issued natively there and the part that arrived over a bridge. Summing the bridge-received side gives the float sitting behind a wrapped or bridged representation.
| Asset | Bridge-received, Oct 21 | Bridge-received, Oct 14 | 7-day change |
|---|---|---|---|
| USDT | $12.806B | $13.024B | −$218.1M |
| USDC | $3.714B | $3.714B | −$0.5M |
| DAI | $573.2M | $574.1M | −$0.9M |
| Total Big-3 | $17.093B | $17.313B | −$219.4M |
The largest single-chain moves inside that total:
| Asset | Chain | Oct 14 | Oct 21 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| USDT | OP Mainnet | $454.3M | $315.6M | −$138.6M |
| USDT | Plasma | $755.7M | $707.6M | −$48.1M |
| USDT | Polygon | $725.2M | $710.1M | −$15.2M |
| USDT | Berachain | $39.2M | $24.2M | −$15.0M |
| USDT | X Layer | $119.1M | $129.9M | +$10.8M |
| USDT | Mantle | $441.9M | $451.9M | +$10.0M |
| USDC | Polygon | $1,009.1M | $1,015.9M | +$6.9M |
Bridge-carried float fell 1.27% against a 0.81% fall in total supply, and the bridged share of the Big-3 slipped to 6.58% from 6.61%.
OP Mainnet is the case worth reading closely. Its USDT balance fell $157.4M and $138.6M of that was bridged float leaving, so most of the move was wrapped dollars going home rather than a holder selling.
The endpoint records how much of a balance arrived over a bridge and stops there. The bridge names, source chains and route pairs sit outside the series.
Verified issuer and large-wallet events
Whale Alert reports large on-chain transactions as they happen, and this table holds the alerts inside the reporting window converted to UTC−05:00. The feed reports identified large events, so its totals are a floor on issuance and a sample of transfers, not a ledger.
| Asset | Amount and action | Chain | Local time | Entity / details |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| USDC | 100.5M from Coinbase to unknown wallet 11 | Solana | Oct 14, 11:42 | Venue outflow |
| USDC | 250.0M minted at USDC Treasury 12 | Solana | Oct 14, 11:51 | Circle Treasury |
| USDC | 250.0M minted at USDC Treasury 13 | Solana | Oct 14, 15:53 | Circle Treasury |
| USDC | 250.0M minted at USDC Treasury 14 | Solana | Oct 14, 16:31 | Circle Treasury |
| USDT | 136.2M from unknown wallet to Bitfinex 15 | Ethereum | Oct 14, 13:00 | Venue inflow |
| USDT | 150.2M from Bitfinex to Tether Treasury 16 | Ethereum | Oct 14, 22:36 | Venue to treasury |
| USDT | 131.4M from unknown wallet to Bitfinex 17 | Ethereum | Oct 15, 07:04 | Venue inflow |
| USDT | 102.0M from Binance to Ceffu 18 | Ethereum | Oct 15, 09:06 | Custody move |
| USDT | 131.4M from Bitfinex to Tether Treasury 19 | Ethereum | Oct 15, 15:11 | Venue to treasury |
| USDC | 250.0M minted at USDC Treasury 20 | Solana | Oct 15, 12:16 | Circle Treasury |
| USDC | 250.0M minted at USDC Treasury 21 | Solana | Oct 15, 13:03 | Circle Treasury |
| USDC | 250.0M minted at USDC Treasury 22 | Solana | Oct 15, 17:06 | Circle Treasury |
| USDT | 140.0M from Bitfinex to Tether Treasury 23 | Solana | Oct 16, 10:55 | Venue to treasury |
| USDC | 250.0M minted at USDC Treasury 24 | Solana | Oct 16, 07:22 | Circle Treasury |
| USDT | 213.6M from unknown wallet to Bitfinex 25 | Ethereum | Oct 16, 12:54 | Venue inflow |
| USDC | 250.0M minted at USDC Treasury 26 | Solana | Oct 16, 11:52 | Circle Treasury |
| USDC | 250.0M minted at USDC Treasury 27 | Solana | Oct 16, 17:33 | Circle Treasury |
| USDC | 250.0M minted at USDC Treasury 28 | Solana | Oct 16, 21:07 | Circle Treasury |
| USDC | 250.0M minted at USDC Treasury 29 | Solana | Oct 19, 07:11 | Circle Treasury |
| USDC | 250.0M minted at USDC Treasury 30 | Solana | Oct 19, 11:08 | Circle Treasury |
| USDC | 106.1M from USDC Treasury to unknown wallet 31 | Ethereum | Oct 19, 11:47 | Treasury deployment |
| USDC | 250.0M minted at USDC Treasury 32 | Solana | Oct 19, 15:41 | Circle Treasury |
| USDC | 250.0M minted at USDC Treasury 33 | Solana | Oct 19, 15:52 | Circle Treasury |
| USDT | 213.6M from Bitfinex to Tether Treasury 34 | Ethereum | Oct 19, 13:17 | Venue to treasury |
| USDC | 151.5M burned at USDC Treasury 35 | Ethereum | Oct 19, 14:18 | Circle Treasury |
| USDT | 101.0M from unknown wallet to Bitfinex 36 | Ethereum | Oct 20, 07:22 | Venue inflow |
| USDT | 101.0M from Bitfinex to Tether Treasury 37 | Tron | Oct 20, 11:29 | Venue to treasury |
| USDT | 112.0M from unknown wallet to Bitfinex 38 | Ethereum | Oct 20, 13:05 | Venue inflow |
| USDC | 250.0M minted at USDC Treasury 39 | Solana | Oct 20, 14:48 | Circle Treasury |
| USDC | 250.0M minted at USDC Treasury 40 | Solana | Oct 20, 14:51 | Circle Treasury |
| USDT | 145.0M from Bitfinex to Tether Treasury 41 | Tron | Oct 21, 07:48 | Venue to treasury |
| USDT | 145.0M from Tether Treasury to Bitfinex 42 | Ethereum | Oct 21, 07:50 | Rotation, return leg |
| USDC | 250.0M minted at USDC Treasury 43 | Solana | Oct 21, 07:42 | Circle Treasury |
Whale Alert carried seventeen USDC Treasury mints inside the window, every one of them 250.0M on Solana, for $4,250.0M together 12. That is three more mints than the previous week's fourteen.
The window's only burn was 151.5M at the USDC Treasury on Ethereum on October 19, about two and a half hours after a 106.1M Treasury withdrawal on the same chain 3135.
Against $4,250.0M of verified mints and $151.5M of burns, USDC's supply fell $931.1M. Solana's own USDC balance fell $180.5M across the same seven days, so the minted dollars left that chain about as fast as they arrived, as they did last week.
USDT had no Tether mint anywhere in the window. The feed's USDT activity was one repeated route: dollars arriving at Bitfinex from an unlabeled wallet on Ethereum, then leaving Bitfinex for the Tether Treasury on Tron or Ethereum.
The matching pairs are the tell. 213.6M arrived on October 16 and the same amount left on October 19 2534. 100.98M arrived on October 20 and the same amount left four hours later 3637.
Each of those pairs moves the same amount across two networks or two counterparties and leaves the amount outstanding unchanged. Bitfinex's tracked wallet set did rise across the week, from a $210.3M average to $382.0M, which fits a venue receiving before it routes. None of this shows up as a mint or a burn, and USDT's supply fell $1,214.3M anyway.
The nightly round trip on Ethereum ran on all seven nights, from October 14 through October 20. An address Whale Alert labels "Unknown Whale 1" withdrew between $133.9M and $134.0M from Aave at 18:33–18:36 local and returned it 34 to 36 minutes later.
Each return matched its withdrawal to within a few hundred dollars 44454647484950. The size of the trip has crept up about $82,000 across the seven nights.
Exchange balances as a buying-power proxy
Stablecoin float in exchange wallets is the part of the supply that can be spent on a position without changing chains first. The balances below come from wallet sets DeFiLlama tracks and publishes, averaged across each of the two weeks so that one day's wallet update does not drive the comparison.
Coinbase and Kraken sit outside every tracked wallet set reachable here, so these aggregates understate what exchanges as a group hold.
| Venue | This-week average | Prior-week average | Change | Series |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Binance 51 | $48.126B | $48.320B | −$193.5M | Stable |
| OKX 52 | $9.914B | $9.947B | −$33.2M | Stable |
| Bybit 53 | $4.039B | $4.186B | −$147.3M | Stable |
| MEXC 54 | $2.016B | $2.013B | +$3.0M | Stable |
| KuCoin 55 | $989M | $1,026M | −$36.8M | Stable |
| Bitget 56 | $877M | $971M | −$93.8M | Mixed |
| Bitfinex 57 | $382M | $210M | +$171.7M | Volatile |
| BingX 58 | $353M | $360M | −$7.9M | Stable |
| Gate 59 | $300M | $277M | +$22.1M | Mixed |
| Phemex 60 | $126M | $128M | −$1.9M | Stable |
| Deribit 61 | $122M | $75M | +$46.3M | Volatile |
| Crypto.com 62 | $120M | $135M | −$14.9M | Mixed |
| Bitmex 63 | $108M | $108M | +$0.0M | Stable |
| All 80 tracked venues | $68.272B | $68.574B | −$302.0M | — |
| Venues with stable series | $65.957B | $66.379B | −$421.4M | — |
The two totals move in opposite relation to last week. The all-venue figure fell $302.0M while the stable subset fell $421.4M, because the wider number is lifted by two venues whose tracked sets churn wildly. Across the fourteen days Bitfinex's daily reading ranged from $157.4M to $613.2M, and Deribit's from $65.4M to $201.7M. Both series fail the steadiness screen and neither is in the subset.
The stable subset is 27 venues holding at least $1M of the three assets whose daily readings stayed within 5% of their level over the past 14 days, and it carried $65.957B of the $68.272B total.
Inside it, USDT sits at $55.668B and USDC at $10.269B 515254. Binance shed $193.5M, Bybit $147.3M and Bitget $93.8M, so the three largest tracked venues all drained.
On the steady series, exchange-held buying power fell with the float. That matters more than the wider total, which this week is distorted upward by wallet-set churn rather than by money arriving.
Market cross-check
| Asset / indicator | Snapshot | Change |
|---|---|---|
| BTC | $83,437.44 3 | +1.38% over 7 days; +1.75% over 24 hours |
| ETH | $2,472.20 4 | +0.73% over 7 days; +2.52% over 24 hours |
| Crypto Fear & Greed | 63, Greed 5 | 62, Greed on October 14 |
| BTC perpetual funding, OKX | 0.00358% per 8 hours 64 | Down from 0.00914%; venue baseline 0.01% |
| BTC perpetual funding, Hyperliquid | 0.0000125% per hour 65 | 0.0003% per day; open interest 41,193.88 BTC |
Stablecoin float and prices moved in opposite directions this week. The Big-3 shrank 0.81% while Bitcoin rose 1.38% and Ethereum 0.73%. Perpetual funding fell toward zero rather than rising: OKX's BTC rate dropped to 0.00358% per eight hours, under 40% of the previous week's reading and well under that venue's 0.01% neutral line. Hyperliquid's hourly rate dropped to 0.0000125%, with open interest at 41,193.88 BTC.
That combination is what a reader should hold on to. Dollars left the stablecoin float, prices still rose, and the cost of holding a leveraged long fell rather than rose. The float did not shrink because leveraged buyers were pulling dollars in to chase the move.
What the snapshot establishes
- The Big-3 contracted $2,130.5M to $259.669B, with USDT the larger contributor. USDT fell $1,214.3M and USDC $931.1M, and DAI's $14.9M gain does not offset either 1.
- USDT's decline is its steepest week since the week ended July 8. Four chains — Tron, Ethereum, OP Mainnet and Solana — supplied $1,181.5M of the $1,214.3M 8.
- USDC fell even as Circle minted $4,250.0M of it. Seventeen 250.0M mints, all on Solana, against $151.5M of burns and a $931.1M net decline 12.
- USDT's fall came with no observed Tether issuance. Every USDT alert in the window was a transfer between Bitfinex and the Tether Treasury, several of them matched pairs of the same size on different chains.
- Wrapped float shrank faster than the float itself. Bridge-received supply fell $219.4M to $17.093B, taking its share of the Big-3 to 6.58% from 6.61%, and $138.6M of OP Mainnet's USDT decline was bridged float leaving 1.
- Buying power in tracked exchange wallets fell on the steady series. The 27-venue stable subset averaged $65.957B, down $421.4M, while the distorted all-venue total fell only $302.0M 51.
- Prices rose while the float drained and funding fell. Bitcoin gained 1.38% and Ethereum 0.73% over the seven days, and OKX BTC funding dropped to 0.00358% per eight hours 64.
Three dimensions sit outside what this snapshot can establish:
- Bridge route flows. Pair-by-pair USDT, USDC and DAI netflows across bridges found no free public series this report could verify. DeFiLlama's bridge endpoints answer with a paid-plan prompt, and every public alternative reached so far reports one protocol's own traffic, caps its history at minutes of records, or accepts no date range. The bridge-received stock by chain above is what the available data supports.
- Exchange coverage. Coinbase and Kraken sit outside the tracked wallet sets, so any market-wide total for exchange-held stablecoin balances would rest on an incomplete venue list.
- Gross issuance. Public ledgers of USDC and USDT issuance are partial, so observed mint and burn events are reported beside the net supply change rather than netted into it. Solana's mint series ran $4,250.0M against a $180.5M decline in that chain's USDC balance.
Method note: supply figures come from DeFiLlama's asset and chain snapshots taken at 2026-10-21 08:00 (UTC−05:00).
Other chains is the residual of DeFiLlama's full chain list after the named chains in each table, with the count of chains it covers in brackets. Week-over-week figures come from one same-moment pull, so they can differ from a difference against the levels printed in an earlier issue; DeFiLlama has restated such levels after previous editions. The historical ranking of USDT's weekly change uses the per-asset daily chain series, differenced over seven-day intervals. Bridge-received figures sum each asset's per-chain bridgedTo field, excluding chains whose series stopped updating and any chain without a data point within a day of the seven-day-old date; that excluded 26 USDT, 29 USDC and 13 DAI chains, and those figures come from that series' own daily snapshot at 00:00 UTC while the chain tables come from the summary endpoint's later snapshot. Exchange balances average each venue's daily readings across the two weeks using wallet sets the venue or its proof-of-reserve disclosures publish, with the comparison weeks running October 15 to October 21 and October 8 to October 14; a venue counts as stable when it holds at least $1M of the three assets and its daily readings stay within 5% of their level over the past 14 days, with Volatile above 15% coefficient of variation and Mixed between. Issuer and wallet events come from Whale Alert's public alerts and are treated as inventory or routing evidence. Market figures and perpetual funding use the linked public APIs. All times are UTC−05:00.For informational use only; this report offers no investment advice.
References
- 1DeFiLlama Stablecoins API
stablecoins.llama.fi
- 2Circle USDC by chain API
api.circle.com
- 3CoinPaprika BTC ticker
api.coinpaprika.com
- 4CoinPaprika ETH ticker
api.coinpaprika.com
- 5Alternative.me Fear and Greed API
api.alternative.me
- 6CoinMetrics USDC supply series
community-api.coinmetrics.io
- 7CoinMetrics USDT supply series
community-api.coinmetrics.io
- 8DeFiLlama USDT endpoint
stablecoins.llama.fi
- 9DeFiLlama USDC endpoint
stablecoins.llama.fi
- 10DeFiLlama DAI endpoint
stablecoins.llama.fi
- 11
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- 46
- 47
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- 50
- 51DeFiLlama tracked wallets, Binance CEX
api.llama.fi
- 52DeFiLlama tracked wallets, OKX
api.llama.fi
- 53DeFiLlama tracked wallets, Bybit
api.llama.fi
- 54DeFiLlama tracked wallets, MEXC
api.llama.fi
- 55DeFiLlama tracked wallets, KuCoin
api.llama.fi
- 56DeFiLlama tracked wallets, Bitget
api.llama.fi
- 57DeFiLlama tracked wallets, Bitfinex
api.llama.fi
- 58DeFiLlama tracked wallets, BingX
api.llama.fi
- 59DeFiLlama tracked wallets, Gate
api.llama.fi
- 60DeFiLlama tracked wallets, Phemex
api.llama.fi
- 61DeFiLlama tracked wallets, Deribit
api.llama.fi
- 62DeFiLlama tracked wallets, Crypto.com
api.llama.fi
- 63DeFiLlama tracked wallets, Bitmex
api.llama.fi
- 64
- 65Hyperliquid perpetual market data
api.hyperliquid.xyz
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