Circle mints 11B USDC on Solana in historic monthly event

Circle printed roughly $11 billion in USDC on the Solana blockchain during August, a monthly total that marks the largest single-month issuance the network has seen and signals a meaningful shift in where dollar-backed stablecoins are finding a home. What actually happened The minting didn’t land in one dramatic drop. Circle issued USDC across August in repeated $250 million tranches, including a notable $1 billion single-day issuance. Monitoring service Whale Alert flagged roughly $1.25 billion minted in a single week during mid-to-late August alone. The broader picture was equally striking. Gross USDC issuance across all blockchains hit approximately $5 billion in the week ending August 26, the highest weekly figure recorded since early 2026. Each mint is backed one-for-one by USD reserves held by Circle, so this wasn’t creative accounting. The company was responding to real demand, issuing new tokens only when counterparties deposited equivalent dollars. By late August, Solana’s circulating USDC supply had reached around $8 billion, giving the chain more than 10% of USDC’s total supply across all networks. Circle’s Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol, known as CCTP, enables liquidity ...