TL;DR:
The Coin Metrics study covered four years of weekly observations to evaluate the relationship between market returns and token issuance.
Statistical models explain 13% of the weekly variation in USDC supply and 16% in USDT supply.
The annual supply rate for USDC on Aave v3 stood at 11.5% as of midnight UTC on October 19, 2026, compared to 3.1% recorded for USDT.
So far in October, cryptocurrency markets have seen a rally, reflecting a structural divergence in stablecoin growth marked by an acceleration in USDT and a deceleration in USDC . According to Coin Metrics, positive returns in assets outside the stablecoin segment precede opposing behaviors between the two major issuers.
Historically, industry participants interpreted aggregate circulating supply expansion as dry powder earmarked for the immediate purchase of Bitcoin . However, the research documents that issuances respond to heterogeneous demand dynamics within the decentralized finance ecosystem.
Econometric models applied by Coin Metrics revealed that higher funding rates in perpetual futures are associated with supply increases across both assets. Statistically, these rates account for 10% of the variation in weekly USDC supply and 4% in the case of USDT after applying methodological controls.
Conversely, the response following bullish weeks in non-stable tokens exhibits opposite directions. While USDT issuance tends to increase the week after a rally, the minting pace of USDC experiences a quantifiable slowdown in its weekly net balances.
Divergence in DeFi Yields and Collateral Guarantees
Beginning in 2023, the spread between the annual percentage yield on Aave v3 and three-month U.S. Treasury yields added explanatory power for USDC . Data from the Aave protocol indicated that, as of midnight UTC on October 19, 2026, the annual supply rate for USDC on the Ethereum networ k reached 11.5%.
On that same day, the yield for USDT on the same platform stood at 3.1%. As a macroeconomic benchmark, Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED) for the three-month Treasury bill reflected 4.27% on an investment basis on the same date.
The carry-trade spread provided no significant correlation for USDT supply within the evaluated models. According to the technical report, the weekly-lag models explain only 13% of fluctuations in USDC and 16% in USDT, leaving more than 75% of total variation driven by factors not captured by these variables.
Operational differences between the issuers underpin part of these flow discrepancies. Circle’s documentation details that USDC issuance occurs when institutional users deposit dollars to use in settlements, payments, and collateralized lending.
In contrast, Tether’s reporting outlines that USDT is frequently employed to settle direct trade transactions or preserve dollar value after de-risking. An investor holding stablecoins following profit-taking executes a fundamentally different action than a trader positioning for an immediate spot buy order.
The presence of tokens in centralized exchange reserve balances also does not equate to executed purchases. A prior analysis published on July 20 highlighted that reserves on Binance and Bybit represent available liquidity, yet serve merely as an intermediate step prior to any definitive trade execution.
The diversification of stablecoin use cases undermines the aggregate supply metric as a straightforward, one-directional liquidity indicator for Bitcoin . Interpreting available liquidity will hinge on tracking capital rotation within yield contracts alongside forthcoming reserve balance updates from major centralized exchanges at the close of the current month.
