[DigitalToday reporter Yoonseo Lee] Circulation of Circle's euro stablecoin EURC has topped 400 million euros (about 648.5 billion won) four years after its launch.

On Aug. 18 (local time), blockchain outlet Cryptopolitan reported that dollar-based stablecoins still dominate the market, but euro-based payment infrastructure is gradually expanding among institutions, payment companies and developers seeking to store and transfer euros on blockchains.

The overall market remains small. A report the Bank for International Settlements released in May 2026 showed about 98 percent of total stablecoin value is denominated in dollars. As of mid-2026, the market for euro-pegged stablecoins totals about $900 million, still less than 1 percent of the roughly $300 billion global stablecoin market.

EURC is showing rapid growth among euro stablecoins. After it first launched on Ethereum in June 2022, it expanded supported networks to Avalanche, Stellar, Solana and Base. In December 2024, EURC supply circulating across five blockchains was close to 80 million euros, and then rose sharply. Circle said supply doubled in the first half of 2025 and increased by more than 100 percent over the past 12 months.

Circle also views the 400 million-euro mark as a key milestone. Patrick Hansen (패트릭 한센), Circle's senior director for EU strategy and policy, said EURC has surpassed 400 million euros in circulation for the first time in history and has grown more than 10-fold compared with the early period of the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation, or MiCA.

Despite the rapid growth, the gap with dollar stablecoins remains large. Euro-based tokens have faced constraints in use because they often had to pass through dollar-pegged stablecoins in payment processes or lacked on-chain liquidity. When bridges were needed to move assets between blockchains, additional security risks and inconvenience also followed.

The European Union's MiCA has influenced the changing environment. MiCA set standards for reserve assets, disclosures, governance and redemptions, and Circle operates EURC in the form of an e-money token in line with the rules. EURC is issued through a French e-money institution, and reserve assets are held separately. Overall operations are supervised by France's Prudential Supervision and Resolution Authority, or ACPR.

Links with traditional payment networks are also expanding. Visa and Mastercard are expanding stablecoin payment functions that include EURC, and payment company Thunes added a EURC pre-funding function on Ethereum, Solana, Base and Stellar. This allows users to handle euro-based transactions without bank business hours or the process of converting into dollars.

On-chain data also shows growth in non-dollar stablecoins. Data compiled by Dune showed that by February 2026, transaction volumes in local-currency stablecoins had risen about 90 percent to $1.2 billion. The growth rate was faster than for dollar-based tokens, and euro-based stablecoins accounted for more than 80 percent of market capitalization and 85 percent of total transaction volume.

EURC's monthly processing volume was also tallied at about $10 billion to $20 billion. Unique addresses using non-dollar stablecoins rose from about 40,000 in January 2023 to more than 1.2 million in early February 2026, showing rapid expansion in the user base as well.

Tether, meanwhile, stopped supporting its euro stablecoin rather than continuing the EURT business in line with European regulation. That suggests competition in the euro stablecoin market is shifting from issuance scale alone to meeting regulatory requirements and how deeply issuers can enter mainstream payment networks.

EURC's move past 400 million euros is not enough to shake the dollar-centered structure of the stablecoin market immediately. Still, it matters in showing that the euro is also expanding its own on-chain ecosystem as regulatory foundations and payment infrastructure take shape. A key question is how much euro stablecoins can expand market share in a dollar-centered market.

EURC has officially crossed €400M in circulation for the first time in history • >10X growth since our MiCA launch 2 years ago • largest euro stablecoin by far, >50% of the market, only euro stablecoin among the top 25 stablecoins • most widely listed euro stablecoin… pic.twitter.com/Kknppo9vXb