Dollar-pegged stablecoins have a new leader in Europe. USDC now accounts for 56% of stablecoin-to-euro trading, up from roughly 10% in January 2024, according to data from Kaiko reported by Cointelegraph on October 27, 2026. For the first time, Circle's token has passed Tether's USDT in the currency pair most European traders use to move between euros and crypto.
A share flip measured in order-book depth
The shift is not only about headline volume. Kaiko found that USDC's order books in euro-denominated pairs are about 40% deeper than USDT's, which means larger trades move the price less. Depth matters more than a single percentage for anyone settling size, because it sets the real cost of converting between euros and a stablecoin. Kaiko called stablecoin-to-euro pairs the main on-ramp and off-ramp for European customers entering and exiting the market, so the coin that controls that pair controls a large share of the region's crypto plumbing.
Tether has not collapsed. Its global circulating supply is still roughly 2.5 times that of USDC. The change is regional and specific: inside the euro trading corridor, the balance has tipped, while USDT keeps its lead almost everywhere else.
Regulation did the heavy lifting
The turn accelerated after major exchanges restricted USDT trading for customers in the European Economic Area to comply with the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation, known as MiCA. About two weeks before Kaiko's report, the European Banking Authority designated USDC as the EU's first "significant e-money token" under MiCA. That status carries heavier supervision, but it also gives trading venues the regulatory clarity they need to keep listing the coin for European users.
Put those two forces together and the math follows. Venues pulled back from USDT while the EBA handed USDC a compliance stamp, and a token that held about a tenth of euro trading in early 2024 now holds a majority. This is a market reshaped by rulebooks more than by any change in the products themselves.
The euro-spending angle for card users
For people who spend crypto through a card, the stablecoin that wins euro liquidity is the one that will quietly sit behind a lot of euro-area transactions. A growing number of cards settle purchases from a stablecoin balance rather than from volatile assets, and in the euro zone that balance is increasingly USDC. Deeper, cheaper conversion between euros and USDC trims the spread a cardholder pays when a purchase clears.
There is a practical reason to track which coin funds your card. If exchanges and issuers across the EEA are steering users toward USDC, holding USDT as your settlement float can mean extra conversion steps, or restricted top-ups, when you try to load value. For a German or wider euro-area cardholder, funding from the coin with the deepest euro market is the route with the least friction. Euro-area users already compare cards with no foreign exchange markup; the stablecoin behind the card is a second, quieter layer of that same cost question, since USDC is still dollar-pegged and a euro purchase still crosses a USD/EUR conversion somewhere in the stack.
None of this makes USDC the obvious pick for every user. It does mean that anyone choosing a crypto card for euro spending should check which stablecoins the issuer supports, and whether the default settlement coin is one that EEA venues will keep servicing.
Washington is watching the same playbook
The same regulatory sorting is forming in the United States. The GENIUS Act could produce a comparable effect, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency finalized its stablecoin rules on October 21, with an effective date of January 18, 2027. From July 2028, US platforms face restrictions on offering stablecoins from issuers that are not approved. Circle has pursued authorization in both Europe and the US, while Tether has launched a separate US-focused stablecoin, USAT, to meet local requirements.
The euro result is an early read on what a rules-first stablecoin market looks like in practice. The compliant coin gathers the liquidity, and an incumbent's global size does not automatically carry over into a regulated corridor. If the US market splits the same way, the token your American card settles from in 2028 may be decided less by habit than by which issuer cleared the regulator.
Overview
USDC has taken 56% of euro stablecoin trading, up from about 10% in January 2024, and its euro order books now sit roughly 40% deeper than USDT's, per Kaiko. The trigger was MiCA: EEA exchanges restricted USDT while the European Banking Authority gave USDC the bloc's first significant e-money token designation. Tether remains about 2.5 times larger globally, so this is a regional shift rather than a knockout. For euro-area crypto card users, the takeaway is that USDC is becoming the default settlement coin in the region, and a similar regulated sorting is now taking shape in the US under the GENIUS Act and the OCC's new rules.
