Circle sets new 2026 minting record on Solana 

The issuer of the USDC stablecoin, Circle, had its busiest week so far in 2026, minting $3.25 billion to the Solana blockchain alone, on-chain data shows. The record comes days after Circle published its latest response to the escalating threat quantum technology poses to its open Layer-1 blockchain network, Arc. 

The steady USDC liquidity injection spotted on-chain came via 13 tranches of 250 million mint transactions spread across the last seven days, ahead of a week where US President Donald Trump warned the “crazy bastards” in Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz or face the fire on “Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day,” according to a Sunday Truth Social post. 

The airstrikes promised for Tuesday are not the only imminent threat on the horizon, as Circle has one eye on the looming post-quantum era threat that Google warned about last week.

 Circle sets new 2026 minting record on Solana 

The $3.25 billion USDC tokens that entered circulation over the last seven days is the highest level the issuer has reached so far this year. 

Typically, stablecoin issuers move their fiat-pegged tokens via mints, burns, and reblancing across different chains in response to demand and market conditions. It is also one of the most closely watched metrics among market participants who “follow the money.”

As Cryptopolitan reported in February, markets braced for a bear market when Binance’s stablecoin reserve steadily declined to $36 billion from almost $44 billion at one point. That period also coincided with liquidity outflows from BNB Chain, signs of generally depressed trading across the exchange and its native network. 

And when $2.2 billion in USDT entered in a single day on March 18, the highest single-day inflow since November 2025, markets also interpreted that as a bullish signal. 

What the $3.25 billion mint means

The $3.25 billion Circle minted is a sign that it is fulfilling demand for its stablecoin on the Solana network. As for where that liquidity will be deployed, on-chain data can offer clues. 

Solana has sustained its dominance in the DeFi trenches, maintaining its volume lead over Ethereum since late 2024, when it became the hub for decentralized exchange (DEX) trading, driven by platforms such as Raydium, Jupiter, PumpSwap, Orca, Meteora, and HumidiFi. 

Solana has also delivered strong numbers in both institutional and retail sections of the RWA tokenization sector.  

The regulatory status of the USDC stablecoin has made it the leading option for settlements in the booming tokenized equities sector, where about $ 1 billion in stocks are already represented on-chain. 

Token Terminal also spotted significant growth in tokenized commodities and funds on Solana, where USDC accounts for a dominant 52% of the $14.7 billion in stablecoins on the network. 

The activity surge has also extended to other stablecoin issuers, with Global Dollar (USDG) also crossing the $1 billion milestone. 

USDC issuer responds to quantum threat

Circle has claimed to be “actively planning” in its latest paper evaluating the risk quantum technology poses to cryptography, the technology powering its Arc blockchain. 

Circle’s paper highlighted the bottleneck that banks, fintechs, stablecoin issuers, RWA platforms, global enterprises, and blockchains face in dealing with the time crunch that Google started when it escalated the threat level of the dreaded “Q-Day” timeline to 2029 based on research that it found too sensitive to even publish publicly last week. 

Arc is planning to move quantum resilience from the theoretical phase into full deployment, from its mainnet launch phase through validator hardening designs in the long term. 

The Bitcoin developer community has proposed BIP-360 as the starting point of its post-quantum era preparation, merging it into the official BIP repository on February 11.

If you want a calmer entry point into DeFi crypto without the usual hype, start with this free video.