USDC supply falls $800 million to $70 billion as redemptions top issuance for a second straight week

USDC circulation dropped for the second week in a row. In the week ending Oct. 29, Circle issued about $10.9 billion in new tokens and redeemed about $11.7 billion, cutting supply by roughly $800 million to $70 billion.

The week before, ending Oct. 22, supply fell about $500 million. Two weeks of net redemptions add up to about $1.3 billion.

Reserves still exceed supply

Circle's reserves stood at about $71.4 billion on Oct. 29, more than the $70 billion of USDC in circulation. Every token remains backed 1:1.

The reserve breakdown for that date:

• About $32.9 billion in overnight reverse repurchase agreements backed by Treasuries.
• About $27.5 billion in Treasury securities maturing in under three months.
• About $10.4 billion in deposits at systemically important financial institutions.
• About $600 million in other bank deposits.

The $11.7 billion in weekly redemptions was processed with reserves staying above circulating supply.

Why the float matters to Circle

Circle's revenue depends heavily on the interest earned on the Treasuries, repos and deposits backing USDC. Fewer tokens outstanding means fewer dollars earning interest.

That link has drawn attention lately. Price targets on Circle shares have been cut, with downgrades tied to concerns that stablecoin demand could shift toward alternatives paying higher yields, according to Crypto Briefing's account of the analyst moves.

The sources do not say what drove the two weeks of net redemptions.

The case against alarm is straightforward. Crypto Briefing's own read is that about $1.3 billion in outflows against a $70 billion base is a modest decline, not a collapse, and the backing held without strain. Issuance of nearly $11 billion in the same week shows demand did not disappear. Redemptions simply ran ahead of it.

Legacy cross-chain tool begins winding down

Separately, Circle plans to begin winding down the first version of its Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol, CCTP V1, on Oct. 31. The tool moves USDC between blockchains by burning tokens on the source chain and minting them on the destination chain.

From Oct. 31, Circle's published schedule calls for lower burn limits, followed by a gradual decline in performance. Contracts are scheduled to pause on Dec. 1, 2026. After that, any integration still pointing to V1 will stop transferring USDC across chains.

Circle announced the move away from V1 on Nov. 14, 2025, and published the October-to-December timetable on Aug. 27, 2026. The wind-down was planned well before this week's redemption numbers.

Circle says pending redemptions will stay available during the phase-out. It says it will keep minting allowances above the total of pending attestations so outstanding transfers can complete before the pause.

Applications must migrate to the newer CCTP, which Circle says is incompatible with V1. That means new contract addresses, a changed depositForBurn function with added parameters for destination caller, maximum fee and minimum finality threshold, and a new attestation workflow. Noble holders face a separate exit deadline in January, according to The Defiant.

The Binance hack

The same week, Binance said it was working to resolve a "complex attack" affecting about $6.3 billion in funds. It is thought to be the biggest crypto heist ever, about four times the $1.5 billion taken from Bybit in February last year.

Binance said about $3 billion in affected assets had been frozen. It said customer account balances were not touched, though withdrawals were suspended. As of about 0900 GMT Friday, Binance said it was on track to resume withdrawals within 45 hours. It also warned the loss figure "may continue to increase."

Binance first pointed to a compromised laptop belonging to a DevOps engineer. It later said investigators had "uncovered additional points of breach." The blockchain analytics firm TRM Labs said it had "high confidence" the attack was carried out by TraderTraitor, a North Korea-affiliated group. Elliptic also attributed it to North Korea-linked hackers. Neither attribution is a government finding.

Jeremy Allaire, who runs Circle, said the company had frozen more than $800 million in USDC. Tether's Paolo Ardoino said his firm froze about $1.6 billion.

President Donald Trump said Friday the United States was looking into the hack. The FBI said it was "engaged with relevant public and private partners to understand the scope of the activity."

No source ties the USDC redemptions to the Binance incident. The two stories overlap on the calendar and nothing more has been established.

What to watch

The next weekly reserve and circulation figures will show whether net redemptions continue or reverse. A third straight decline would extend the trend. Binance's withdrawal restart and its promised technical analysis of the breach are the other near-term markers. The CCTP V1 burn limits are scheduled to start tightening Oct. 31, ahead of the Dec. 1 pause.