Stablecoins Surge as USDT and USDC Drive Global Digital Payment Adoption

TLDR: USDT and USDC dominate stablecoin supply as demand grows across trading, payments, and global settlements. Emerging markets rely on stablecoins to protect value and bypass weak banking and volatile local currencies. Regulatory clarity improves issuer transparency and strengthens trust in reserve-backed digital dollars. Commodity and cross-border trade increasingly adopt stablecoins for faster and cheaper settlement. Stablecoins reached record adoption in 2026 as global supply exceeded 270 billion dollars. This rise was led by Tether near 185 billion, and USDC above 70 billion. Trading volume and active wallets continued to rise, showing that demand for digital dollars across exchanges. Many used them for payments and commodity settlements as regulatory clarity improves in major markets. This institutional interest supports stable growth during current market conditions. Emergence and Technology of Stablecoins Stablecoins were developed to solve inefficiencies in transferring fiat currency across early cryptocurrency exchanges. USDT launched in 2014 as Realcoin and later rebranded as Tether. It was aimed to enable faster digital movement of dollar equivalents between platforms such as Bitfinex and Kraken. This innovation reduced delays that previously limited arbitrage and liquidity in fragmented crypto markets. Private money isn’t new, the rails are.After stablecoin supply, volume, and active users surged to all-time highs in 2025, this blog from @LorenzoARK explores how stablecoins emerged, the technology behind them, and where they could be headed next.https://t.co/L7Xu0Fc24Q — ARK Invest (@ARKInvest) February 5, 2026 USDT initially operated on the Bitcoin-based Omni Layer before expanding to Ethereum, Tron, Solana, and other blockchains. These transitions increased transaction speed, lowered fees, and strengthened interoperability between networks. By 2019, Tether became the most traded crypto asset by daily volume, exceeding bitcoin activity. The COVID-...