Circle reportedly minted approximately $3.5 billion in USDC on Solana over a seven-day period ending October 12, extending a pattern of large treasury operations on the network. The figure represents gross token creation rather than a $3.5 billion increase in circulating USDC, making the distinction between minting and actual supply growth central to interpreting the activity.
Circle’s transparency dashboard showed $72.7 billion of USDC in global circulation as of October 12, backed by approximately $73 billion in reserves. During the preceding seven days, Circle issued $8.6 billion and redeemed $10.1 billion across its supported networks, producing a net $1.5 billion contraction in global circulating supply despite substantial gross issuance.
The Solana figure originated from onchain monitoring shared by SolanaFloor, which reported approximately $3.5 billion in Circle minting during the seven-day window. Similar activity had already appeared earlier in the month, including reported 24-hour batches totaling roughly $750 million. Large treasury mints demonstrate issuance capacity on Solana, but they do not reveal whether the tokens were subsequently distributed, retained in treasury addresses, redeemed elsewhere or moved through cross-chain mechanisms.
Solana Remains a Major Native USDC Network
Current DeFiLlama data places native USDC circulating on Solana at roughly $7.1 billion, narrowly ahead of Hyperliquid and behind Ethereum. Solana therefore remains the second-largest network for circulating USDC in the tracker, even though its balance has declined over the past week rather than rising by the amount implied by gross minting.
That distinction is consistent with previous Circle activity. A September mint of 500 million USDC on Solana similarly established that new tokens had been created at the treasury level without identifying their eventual recipients or proving an equivalent increase in active market liquidity. Redemptions, burns and treasury inventories can occur alongside issuance.
Solana nevertheless provides a substantial market for dollar-denominated settlement. The network has supported significant decentralized exchange activity, including a previous period when 24-hour DEX volume reached $1.53 billion. Native USDC can serve as trading collateral, payment inventory and DeFi liquidity, but supply balances alone do not establish how much of that capital is actively being used in any particular application.
Consumer Distribution Adds Another Potential USDC Channel
USDC’s presence on Solana is also expanding beyond crypto-native trading infrastructure. Samsung recently announced plans to introduce stablecoin transfers through Samsung Wallet using Solana and Sui as underlying blockchain rails, targeting approximately 82 million compatible Galaxy devices in the United States.
The Samsung Wallet rollout is scheduled to begin during the final week of October. The 82 million figure represents compatible devices rather than users of the stablecoin service, and the actual scale of adoption will depend on account activation, transaction volume and repeat usage after launch.
Solana’s role in that product is primarily settlement infrastructure, while regulated providers handle custody and money movement. That architecture illustrates how additional USDC demand could eventually originate from payments and remittances as well as trading, although an announced distribution channel should not be treated as demonstrated stablecoin demand before usage data becomes available.
The reported $3.5 billion weekly mint therefore shows substantial Circle treasury activity on Solana without establishing a comparable inflow of new capital. The more meaningful measure is how much native USDC ultimately remains in circulation and how that balance is used across trading, DeFi and payment applications, rather than the gross value of tokens minted during a short window.
Jack Reynolds is SatoshiPick’s infrastructure mind. Based in Denmark, he follows Bitcoin, Ethereum, Layer 1 networks, stablecoins and DeFi with a practical question always in the background: does this actually make crypto work better?
His articles focus on the systems beneath the headlines: settlement rails, protocol upgrades, stablecoin usage, DeFi coordination and the regulatory limits around them. Jack avoids turning technical coverage into a maze. He explains what is live, what is still experimental and why the difference matters.