The #USDT currency of #Tether , which is valued at over $155 billion, has dominated the stablecoin market for nearly a decade.
After achieving profits of $13 billion last year, the largest transaction volume among all digital assets - including the $BTC currency.
Itself - and benefiting from the appointment of its asset manager to Donald Trump's administration, many questioned the ability of any stablecoin to compete.
However, for the first time in history, the world's largest stablecoin issuer is facing serious competition from #Circle .
Circle made remarkable progress in its $USDC value this year, gathering Prot,os data on three metrics in which it outperformed Tether.
For the first time in history, the world's largest stablecoin issuer is facing fierce competition.
Although Tether remains the market leader and holds a dominant share of circulating tokens, search queries, and trading volume, Circle's growth rates highlight some areas where it is gaining momentum.
Ultimately, the most important metric for ranking stablecoin issuers is their market share. According to this metric, USDT remains the leader with 61.5% of a $253 billion market.
USDC ranks second with a 24% share.
However, Circle's growth is impressive.
Circle gains momentum over Tether in 2025
Since the beginning of the year, Circle has increased the circulating supply of USDC by 40.4%. This compares to a 13.6% increase in USDT over the same period.
Specifically, the circulating supply of USDC grew from over 43.7 billion to over 61.4 billion. The total outstanding USDT grew from 137 billion to just over 155.7 billion.
This is the first metric of Circle's supremacy.
Secondly, global Google search queries for USDC also grew by 3% this year from 64 to 66. The popularity of USDT, a much more commonly used term on an absolute basis, declined by 25% according to Google Trends, from 82 to 61.
Thirdly, USDC also outpaced USDT in growth rates of fiat trading volume. Although USDT remains the most traded digital asset on an absolute basis, USDC has captured a portion of USDT's market share by 2025.
A snapshot from Bitstamp shows that the rate of decline in US dollar trading volumes from Q4 2024 compared to the last three months is much slower for USDC compared to USDT. Specifically, USDC trading volumes fell by 0.2% from 197 million, while USDT fell by 26% from 851 to 628 million.
Circle also garnered a disproportionate amount of media attention compared to its main competitor in 2025. Since January, articles mentioning USDC increased by 75% from 24,169 to 42,455 according to Muck Rack data.
Media mentions of USDT increased by 42%, from 55,473 to 78,680.
Media growth is, of course, attributed to Circle's IPO. In fact, its market value increased tenfold this year from $4.79 billion to $48 billion, largely due to its debut in the US stock market.
Read more in previous posts: Analysis: Does Circle's IPO value Tether at $316 billion?
Although Circle's growth has captured a share from Tether, Tether's value has increased on its own.
Nonetheless, the private company has not conducted any funding rounds that update Tether's institutional valuation compared to its $7 billion valuation before Trump's elections. As a result, comparing the valuations of the two companies is impossible.