Stablecoin weekly: Big-3 falls $945.1M as USDC sheds $891.0M
The Big-3 stablecoin base fell $945.1M to $261.776B, its first weekly contraction since August 19, as USDC shed $891.0M and $419.7M of USDT left Solana for Tron.
The aggregate circulating supply of the three largest stablecoins fell $945.1M over the seven days ending September 16, 2026 at 08:00 (UTC−05:00), to $261.776B 1. It is the first weekly contraction this report series has recorded since August 19, and it ends three straight weeks of expansion.
USDC supplied $891.0M of that decline. USDT fell $47.6M worldwide, and DAI $6.5M 1. The near-flat USDT figure conceals the week's largest chain-level shift: $419.7M of USDT left Solana while $356.0M arrived on Tron and $190.8M on Ethereum 1.
Big-3 aggregate supply movements
| Asset | Current supply | Previous-week supply | 7-day change | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| USDT | $183.256B | $183.303B | −$47.6M | −0.03% |
| USDC | $73.734B | $74.625B | −$891.0M | −1.19% |
| DAI | $4.786B | $4.792B | −$6.5M | −0.14% |
| Total Big-3 | $261.776B | $262.721B | −$945.1M | −0.36% |
DeFiLlama's asset-level response supplies the current and previous-week values for all three assets 1.
USDC moved 1.19% against USDT's 0.03%, so the aggregate change is a USDC change. Over 30 days the same source still shows the Big-3 $2.046B larger, with USDC up $1.773B, USDT up $257.7M and DAI up $15.4M 1. One week of contraction sits inside a month of expansion.
Chain-level supply distribution
A chain balance records where a stablecoin sits at the moment of the snapshot. Each of the three tables below carries the same nine named chains plus one residual row, and each is ordered by the size of its weekly change.
USDT
| Chain | Current supply | Previous-week supply | 7-day change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Solana | $2.344B | $2.764B | −$419.7M |
| Tron | $92.581B | $92.226B | +$356.0M |
| Ethereum | $73.603B | $73.412B | +$190.8M |
| Other chains | $3.620B | $3.710B | −$90.0M |
| Avalanche | $291.8M | $341.8M | −$50.0M |
| Polygon | $740.6M | $768.8M | −$28.2M |
| Arbitrum | $811.2M | $817.7M | −$6.5M |
| BSC | $9.178B | $9.178B | +$79K |
| Hyperliquid L1 | $85.5M | $85.5M | −$31K |
| Base | Not reported by source | Not reported by source | Not reported by source |
The nine named chains gained $42.4M between them while the residual bucket lost $90.0M, and the difference is the $47.6M global decline. Tether issues natively on Tron, Ethereum and Solana, so a chain balance is an endpoint record rather than a bridge route, and Tron's gain carries no information about which chain the money left.
USDC
| Chain | Current supply | Previous-week supply | 7-day change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Arbitrum | $2.323B | $2.704B | −$380.9M |
| Solana | $6.833B | $7.179B | −$346.0M |
| Ethereum | $46.539B | $46.734B | −$194.7M |
| Hyperliquid L1 | $6.733B | $6.909B | −$176.3M |
| Polygon | $1.651B | $1.816B | −$165.0M |
| Other chains | $3.382B | $2.957B | +$425.3M |
| Base | $4.253B | $4.298B | −$45.0M |
| BSC | $1.581B | $1.589B | −$7.1M |
| Avalanche | $410.9M | $412.1M | −$1.2M |
| Tron | $27.9M | $27.9M | −$1K |
USDC declined on all nine named chains, which lost $1.316B between them, and the residual bucket gained $425.3M; the two together produce the $891.0M global decline. A contraction of that size spread across nine chains alongside a $425.3M gain in the smaller chains is one net decline and one redistribution, and a seven-day endpoint comparison separates neither.
DAI
| Chain | Current supply | Previous-week supply | 7-day change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ethereum | $4.158B | $4.169B | −$10.7M |
| Polygon | $496.6M | $492.4M | +$4.2M |
| Other chains | $73.4M | $73.7M | −$311K |
| Arbitrum | $15.5M | $15.2M | +$271K |
| Solana | $510.3K | $510.3K | +$0 |
| BSC | $31.1M | $31.1M | +$0 |
| Avalanche | $10.8M | $10.8M | +$0 |
| Tron | Not reported by source | Not reported by source | Not reported by source |
| Base | Not reported by source | Not reported by source | Not reported by source |
| Hyperliquid L1 | Not reported by source | Not reported by source | Not reported by source |
DAI's $6.5M weekly move is smaller than several of its own chain lines, which is what a stable, Ethereum-anchored float looks like from week to week. Source for all three chain tables: 1.
Bridge-received supply
The same endpoint separates each chain's balance into the portion issued natively there and the portion that arrived over a bridge. Summing the bridge-received side gives the stablecoin float that sits behind a wrapped or bridged representation.
| Asset | Bridge-received, Sep 16 | Bridge-received, Sep 9 | 7-day change |
|---|---|---|---|
| USDT | $12.753B | $12.845B | −$92.0M |
| USDC | $3.892B | $3.919B | −$26.6M |
| DAI | $627.1M | $623.8M | +$3.3M |
| Total Big-3 | $17.272B | $17.387B | −$115.2M |
The largest single-chain moves inside that total:
| Asset | Chain | Sep 9 | Sep 16 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| USDT | Plasma | $688.0M | $627.2M | −$60.9M |
| USDT | Polygon | $769.9M | $741.8M | −$28.1M |
| USDC | Hyperliquid L1 | $463.1M | $441.1M | −$21.9M |
| USDT | Arbitrum | $818.3M | $811.1M | −$7.1M |
| USDT | OP Mainnet | $238.7M | $250.6M | +$12.0M |
| USDC | Polygon | $1,024.4M | $1,031.7M | +$7.3M |
Source for both tables: 1.
Bridge-received float fell 0.66%, against 0.36% for total supply, so the bridge-carried share of the market shrank faster than the market did. The endpoint records how much arrived over a bridge and stays silent on which bridge carried it or which chain it left, so these figures describe a stock of bridge-carried float rather than a set of transfers.
Verified issuer and large-wallet events
Whale Alert describes its feed as live reporting on large on-chain transactions as they happen, and this table holds its alerts that fall inside the reporting window once converted to UTC−05:00. It is a record of identified large events rather than a complete issuance ledger.
| Asset | Amount and action | Chain | Local time | Entity / details |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| USDC | 268.0M transferred from Coinbase Institutional to Coinbase 2 | Ethereum | Sep 9, 09:51 | Exchange internal move |
| USDC | 250.0M minted at USDC Treasury 3 | Solana | Sep 9, 14:34 | Circle Treasury |
| USDT | 500.0M transferred from Binance to Tether Treasury 4 | Ethereum | Sep 11, 08:25 | Rotation, leg 1 |
| USDT | 500.0M transferred from Tether Treasury to Binance 5 | Tron | Sep 11, 08:37 | Rotation, leg 2 |
| USDT | 110.0M transferred from Tether Treasury to unknown wallet 6 | Tron | Sep 11, 08:50 | Unlabeled recipient |
| USDT | 157.2M transferred from unknown wallet to Binance 7 | Solana | Sep 11, 20:42 | Exchange deposit |
| USDC | 110.8M minted at USDC Treasury 8 | Ethereum | Sep 12, 08:26 | Circle Treasury |
| USDC | 170.8M transferred from USDC Treasury to Kraken 9 | Ethereum | Sep 12, 08:27 | Exchange deposit |
| USDC | 106.2M burned at USDC Treasury 10 | Ethereum | Sep 15, 12:19 | Circle Treasury |
| USDC | 192.4M burned at USDC Treasury 11 | Ethereum | Sep 15, 19:24 | Circle Treasury |
| USDT | 110.0M transferred from Tether Treasury to Bitfinex 12 | Ethereum | Sep 15, 20:20 | Exchange deposit |
The 500.0M USDT pair on September 11 moved from Binance on Ethereum at 08:25 and back to Binance on Tron twelve minutes later, which is a network change on the way to the same venue. The two Tether Treasury transfers to Bitfinex and to an unlabeled Tron wallet, 220.0M in total, are the week's largest issuer-to-venue and issuer-to-unlabeled movements.
Whale Alert also carried at least eleven further 250.0M USDC mints at the USDC Treasury on Solana between September 9 and September 15, at least $2,750.0M in total and more than three times the weekly pace recorded in last week's edition 131415. Solana's circulating USDC fell $346.0M over the same seven days. The alert feed's mint record has no burn record of comparable completeness to match it, so the two directions cannot be netted here.
The most regular large-wallet pattern of the week ran on Ethereum. On seven consecutive nights, from September 9 through September 15, a single unlabeled address received 143.0M to 193.4M USDC from Aave and returned the same amount to Aave about 35 minutes later 1617. The round trip grew across the week, from 143.0M on September 9 to 191.0M on September 15, and the net position ended where it started on each of the seven nights. Whale Alert labels the counterparty "Unknown Whale 1", so the operator is unidentified.
Exchange balances as a buying-power proxy
Stablecoin float held in exchange wallets is the part of the supply that can be spent on a position without moving between chains first. The venue balances below come from wallet sets DefiLlama tracks and publishes, averaged across each of the two weeks so that a single day's wallet update does not drive the comparison.
Coinbase and Kraken sit outside every tracked wallet set reachable here, so the aggregates below understate the stablecoin balances held across exchanges as a group.
| Venue | This-week average | Prior-week average | Change | Series |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Binance | $49.284B | $49.033B | +$250.7M | Stable |
| OKX | $9.937B | $9.941B | −$4.1M | Stable |
| Bybit | $3.679B | $4.495B | −$815.9M | Volatile |
| MEXC | $2.113B | $2.108B | +$5.1M | Stable |
| KuCoin | $961M | $1,032M | −$70.9M | Mixed |
| Bitget | $871M | $976M | −$104.9M | Volatile |
| Gate | $323M | $317M | +$6.1M | Mixed |
| Bitfinex | $290M | $428M | −$137.9M | Volatile |
| Crypto.com | $175M | $215M | −$39.6M | Volatile |
| All 14 tracked venues | $67.805B | $68.692B | −$887.5M | — |
| Venues with stable series | $61.437B | $61.188B | +$249.2M | — |
The two aggregates disagree because of three venues. Bybit's tracked balance swings more than $1.5B between consecutive days, Bitfinex's by about 60% of its level, and Bitget's by about a quarter, which is what wallets entering and leaving a tracked set look like rather than money arriving and leaving. Restricted to the six venues whose daily readings stay within 5% of their level, USDT rose to $51.222B from $50.821B and USDC slipped to $10.212B from $10.364B, a $249.2M increase overall 181921. On the venues that can be read cleanly, buying power parked on exchanges held flat while total supply contracted, and USDT was the asset that grew there.
Market cross-check
| Asset / indicator | Snapshot | Change |
|---|---|---|
| BTC | $75,793.72 28 | −4.06% over 7 days; −0.93% over 24 hours |
| ETH | $2,403.98 29 | −3.96% over 7 days; −2.02% over 24 hours |
| Crypto Fear & Greed | 51, Neutral 30 | 66, Greed on September 9 |
Bitcoin fell 4.06% and Ethereum 3.96% across the same seven days the stablecoin float contracted, and the sentiment index moved from Greed to Neutral. Supply, price and sentiment all moved the same way over the week.
What the snapshot establishes
- The Big-3 contracted for the first time since August 19. The base fell $945.1M to $261.776B after three weeks of expansion 1.
- USDC carried the move. USDC lost $891.0M, or 94.3% of the net decline, while USDT moved 0.03% 1.
- USDT rotated rather than shrank. A $47.6M global decline contained a $419.7M Solana outflow against $356.0M into Tron and $190.8M into Ethereum 1.
- Circle minted heavily on Solana. At least $2,750.0M of 250.0M USDC mints arrived there while Solana's USDC balance fell $346.0M 13.
- Exchange buying power held flat on the venues that can be read. The six venues with stable wallet sets were up $249.2M, with USDT up $400.9M and USDC down $151.8M 18.
- Bridge-carried float shrank faster than the market. Bridge-received supply fell 0.66% to $17.272B, against 0.36% for total supply 1.
Three dimensions stay unresolved:
- Bridge route flows. DefiLlama's free bridge endpoints answer with a paid-plan prompt, and the public bridge-volume routes reachable this week either report one protocol's own emitter statistics or accept no date range, so pair-by-pair USDT, USDC and DAI bridge netflows for the window remain unmeasured. 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 no market-wide total for exchange-held stablecoin balances can be stated.
- Gross issuance. No public ledger covers every USDC or USDT mint and burn, so the observed mint events cannot be reconciled against the $891.0M net USDC decline.
Method note: supply figures come from DeFiLlama's asset and chain snapshots taken at 2026-09-16 08:00 (UTC−05:00).
Other chains is the residual of DeFiLlama's full chain list after Ethereum, Tron, Arbitrum, Solana, Polygon, Base, Avalanche, BSC and Hyperliquid L1; a chain the source does not report is marked as such rather than given a value. DeFiLlama restated its September 9 baseline by +$189.0M after last week's edition, so week-over-week figures here come from one same-moment pull and differ slightly from the levels printed a week ago. Exchange balances average each venue's daily readings across the two weeks, using wallet sets the venue or its proof-of-reserve disclosures publish; a venue counts as stable when its daily readings stay within 5% of their level over the past 14 days. Issuer and wallet events come from Whale Alert's public alerts and are treated as inventory or routing evidence. Market figures 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
- 2
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- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
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- 11
- 12
- 13
- 14
- 15
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- 17
- 18DeFiLlama tracked wallets, Binance CEX
api.llama.fi
- 19DeFiLlama tracked wallets, OKX
api.llama.fi
- 20DeFiLlama tracked wallets, Bybit
api.llama.fi
- 21DeFiLlama tracked wallets, MEXC
api.llama.fi
- 22DeFiLlama tracked wallets, KuCoin
api.llama.fi
- 23DeFiLlama tracked wallets, Bitget
api.llama.fi
- 24DeFiLlama tracked wallets, Gate
api.llama.fi
- 25DeFiLlama tracked wallets, Bitfinex
api.llama.fi
- 26DeFiLlama tracked wallets, Crypto.com
api.llama.fi
- 27DeFiLlama CEX tracker
api.llama.fi
- 28CoinPaprika BTC ticker
api.coinpaprika.com
- 29CoinPaprika ETH ticker
api.coinpaprika.com
- 30Alternative.me Fear and Greed API
api.alternative.me
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