Key Takeaways:
- Circle minted $3 billion USDC on Solana in a single 24-hour window
- Solana's USDC supply topped $8 billion, over 10% of the global total
- BNY Mellon's expanded Circle tie-up eases direct institutional minting
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Circle mints $3B USDC on Solana as institutional flows shift
Circle minted $3 billion of USDC on Solana in the 24 hours ending Sept. 7, one of the largest single-day issuances on the network and the latest step in a year-long ramp of institutional stablecoin supply.
The mint was flagged by on-chain tracking services Whale Alert and Lookonchain, which have logged Circle's recurring $250 million tranches on Solana through 2026. Gross issuance on the network reached between $64 billion and $68 billion by mid-July, though redemptions and burns mean net supply growth is far smaller than those cumulative totals suggest.
August alone saw roughly $11 billion in gross USDC mints on Solana. By late August, circulating supply on the network had crossed $8 billion, more than 10 percent of global USDC supply for the first time. Earlier tranches included $500 million on June 8, a $1 billion single-day mint in mid-June and $1.25 billion across three days in early September.
USDC is a dollar-pegged stablecoin issued by Circle, backed by reserves of cash and short-dated Treasuries. Its supply on any given chain reflects where institutions and traders want dollar liquidity available for settlement, lending and trading.
The institutional pipeline
The ramp has been aided by a June 2026 expansion of BNY Mellon's collaboration with Circle, which lets large institutions mint and custody USDC directly on Solana without bridging from Ethereum. The arrangement lowers the technical friction that had kept institutional stablecoin activity concentrated on Ethereum, and gives asset managers a direct on-ramp to Solana's DeFi lending and trading venues.
What the Ethereum comparison shows
Ethereum still holds the larger share of USDC supply, but the gap is narrowing. The June 29 event — $910 million minted on Solana against $250 million burned on Ethereum — was the clearest sign of capital rotation toward a network that settles transactions faster and at lower cost. For institutions moving hundreds of millions of dollars in stablecoin transactions daily, those differences compound quickly.
USDC has held its $1 peg throughout the issuance wave, with no deviation flagged by DefiLlama's supply tracker. The open question is whether the pace of Solana mints holds into the fourth quarter, and whether Ethereum responds by cutting its own settlement costs to defend its share of institutional stablecoin flows. Circle's mint cadence over the coming weeks will offer the first read on whether the Sept. 7 print was a one-off or the start of a sustained shift.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.
