MiCA Reshapes Euro Stablecoin Trading: USDC Share Rises to 56%, Liquidity Overtakes USDT

According to a report published by Kaiko on October 27, 2026, Circle's USDC has risen to a 56% share of euro stablecoin trading, up from just 10% in January 2024. The same data also shows that USDC's euro-denominated order book depth is now about 40% higher than that of USDT—on the euro-stablecoin trading pair, the liquidity advantage has changed hands.

The shift was not market-driven. According to the report, under the EU's Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA), major trading platforms have restricted USDT trading for European Economic Area (EEA) clients, and USDC has therefore absorbed the euro trading demand that migrated away. Kaiko describes stablecoin-euro trading pairs as the "primary on- and off-ramp" for European clients: when users enter or exit the crypto market, the step of exchanging euros for a dollar-pegged stablecoin is the core link in that channel.

There is a more direct institutional footnote in the timeline: about two weeks before the data was published, the European Banking Authority (EBA) designated USDC as the first "significant e-money token" under MiCA, bringing it directly under EBA supervision and imposing additional compliance obligations on the issuer. The flip in trading share and the arrival of the regulatory classification occurred almost back to back, and the causal relationship between them is not hard to read from the data.

What needs to be distinguished is scale versus structure. Tether's USDT global circulating supply is still about 2.5 times that of USDC, and its global dominance is unchanged; what has changed is the relative position within the specific euro channel. In other words, this is not a global substitution but a rearrangement of market structure within a regulatory jurisdiction—the same asset can have very different usability under different compliance frameworks.

Kaiko also notes that the United States is heading down a similar path. According to the report, under the GENIUS Act, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) published the first final rule under the law on October 21, 2026, setting reserve and redemption requirements for stablecoin issuers it regulates, effective January 18, 2027; starting in July 2028, U.S. platforms will also be restricted from offering stablecoins issued by issuers that do not meet the law's approval requirements. If this path proceeds as expected, U.S. exchanges could see a migration of trading activity similar to Europe's. The two issuers have already diverged in their responses: Circle is pursuing authorization in both Europe and the United States, while Tether has separately launched USAT for the U.S. market.

Taken together, what is noteworthy is not who won a share once, but that the "tradability" of stablecoins is being redefined by licenses and classifications. For exchanges, delisting a trading pair is no longer just a commercial decision but an extension of compliance obligations; for market makers and liquidity providers, depth follows compliance status, and the 40% depth gap in euro order books is the price expression of that migration; for payment service providers and cross-border settlement scenarios, when choosing a settlement currency, the issuer's regulatory status in the target jurisdiction has become a parameter that must be verified upfront, just like exchange rates and fees.

This logic becomes even sharper in agent payment scenarios. When AI agents initiate stablecoin payments on behalf of people, the judgment of whether a payment should be made must be completed before settlement, and one basis for that judgment is whether the stablecoin used and its issuer are in compliance in the relevant jurisdiction—MiCA's "significant e-money token" classification and the GENIUS Act's approval list are essentially whitelist signals that can be queried programmatically. This set of European data shows that such signals are already sufficient to change the real distribution of liquidity within months; when the initiating party shifts from a person to an agent, the frequency and granularity of verification will only increase, and KYA identity verification and pre-settlement blocking will move from nice-to-have to prerequisites.

One question the data has not yet answered is: how much of USDC's rising share in the euro channel comes from genuine European client on- and off-ramp demand, and how much comes from passive substitution after trading platforms restricted USDT. Kaiko's report gives the result but does not break down these two components. If the U.S. restrictions take effect as scheduled in 2028, the same substitution will play out again in the dollar channel, and that ratio will be easier to see than it is now.

---

Original source: Cointelegraph · https://cointelegraph.com/news/usdc-overtakes-usdt-euro-stablecoin-trading-mica-kaiko?utm_source=rss_feed&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss_partner_inbound