Circle mints $11B USDC on Solana in historic August surge
USDC (USDC)
Editor:
Eugene Serbin
Cryptobriefing.com reports that Circle minted approximately $11 billion in USDC on the Solana blockchain during August, marking the largest single-month issuance for the network. This issuance occurred in repeated $250 million tranches, including a notable $1 billion single-day issuance and roughly $1.25 billion minted in a single week during mid-to-late August. By late August, Solana's circulating USDC supply reached around $8 billion, giving the chain more than 10% of USDC’s total supply across all networks.
The broader picture showed 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, meaning the company was responding to real demand rather than engaging in creative accounting. Circle’s Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol, known as CCTP, enables liquidity to move between blockchains without being manually bridged, reducing friction for institutions.
Circle serves as the technical provider for Hyperliquid’s $5 billion USDC reserve, a relationship that channels significant stablecoin demand directly onto Solana infrastructure. BNY Mellon has also established a pathway for institutional clients to mint and burn USDC on the network, opening the door to a class of capital that previously had limited, compliant access to on-chain dollar liquidity. Prior months in 2026 showed the same pattern building, with April seeing a single-month issuance peak of $3.25 billion, which at the time looked like an outlier.
August’s $11 billion figure suggests the April spike was actually the beginning of a trend, not an anomaly. USDC’s peg held throughout the August minting surge without a visible wobble, demonstrating the depth of its reserve management. A stablecoin that can absorb $11 billion in new issuance on a single chain in a single month without drifting from $1.00 is demonstrating something about the depth of its reserve management.
How the market reacted
Whalio's own Binance spot order flow for USDC, measured when this story was written up on 1 September 2026. Not the outlet's figures.
Whalio's Binance spot data for USDC shows a price of $1.00 with a 24-hour buy ratio of 48.8%, indicating a near-even split between buyers and sellers. The 1-hour buy ratio sits at 39.1% and the 4-hour ratio at 44.1%, suggesting that buying pressure is currently fading compared to the longer-term 24-hour average. Volume Delta for the 1-hour period is -$30,662,980, while the 4-hour delta is -$72,102,493, and the 24-hour delta is -$78,239,885, indicating net selling pressure across all timeframes. The CVD for the 24-hour close is -$47,900,462, further confirming that sellers have been more active than buyers in the recent session. Spot volume over 24 hours reached $3,368,714,219 across 520,901 trades, showing high liquidity despite the net outflow. The negative volume deltas mean that the total value of sell orders exceeded buy orders during these periods, pushing the net flow into negative territory.
The latest daily buy ratio of 50.2% sits at the 73rd percentile of the last 322 days, against a median of 48.4% - stronger buying than most days.
Twenty-four hours later
What USDC did over the 22 hours after the story broke. The market moves for its own reasons; this is what happened, not what the story caused.
Was that an ordinary day?
The same Binance spot measurements for USDC, averaged over the days leading up to the story.
Over the preceding week, the 7-day average buy ratio was 48.6%, with the latest day showing a slight increase of 0.3 points. Volume over the last day was 1.19x the weekly average, indicating a spike in trading activity relative to the norm. However, there were 0 days of net buying in the past 7 days, contrasting with the 15 hours of net buying recorded in the last 24 hours. The 8-day Volume Delta total was -$519,281,307, showing a consistent net outflow over the longer period compared to the 24-hour delta of -$78,239,885. This suggests that while today's volume is elevated, the broader weekly trend remains dominated by net selling pressure. The price change over 8 days is +0.0%, indicating that despite the volume surge, the coin has remained stable without significant directional movement.