In 2024, Circle’s USDC dominated the stablecoin transactions on BitPay, holding an 85% transaction share in contrast to Tether’s USDT at 13%. However, by May 2025, the tables have turned in favor of Tether, with USDC’s share plunging to 56%, while USDT’s share escalated to 43%.

The shift in transaction dynamics occurred despite the positive anticipation around Circle’s public launch in June and the regulatory upper hand that USDC has over USDT in the European Union under the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA).

Tether’s USDT has not only narrowed the gap with its main competitor in terms of transaction count but also led in payment volume on BitPay.

BitPay reported a surge in USDT transactions since March 2025, with it capturing over 70% of the stablecoin volume processed by the platform. The shift can be attributed to the growth in overall stablecoin transactions and a preference for USDT over USDC among existing merchants and customers.

Despite the surge in USDT transactions, Circle’s USDC remains the most popular stablecoin on BitPay by transaction count, though it has experienced a significant drop in 2025.

The rising dominance of Tether in transaction count and payment volumes on BitPay, compared to USDC, provides an interesting perspective considering the different approaches to regulation by Tether and Circle.

While Circle received regulatory approval under Europe’s MiCA in July 2024, Tether has refused to comply with some aspects of the MiCA regulation in Europe. Tether’s CEO, Paolo Ardoino, confirmed that they have no plans to run an IPO, unlike Circle.

Despite losing ground to USDT on BitPay in 2025, USDC has continued to see impressive growth in its market capitalization in the past year, with an 88% surge from around $33 billion to $61.7 billion. In contrast, USDT increased its market value by 40% during the same period, from $112.5 billion to $158.3 billion.

The post Tether Closes in on USDC’s Dominance in BitPay Transactions by 2025 appeared first on Crypto Market Insights: Dive In with CryptoUpdate.io.

Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as payment methods are gaining wider acceptance in the travel industry. Travel booking website Travala.com accepts over 30 types of cryptocurrencies for products and services on its website. It has recently become the first merchant to integrate with Binance’s payment technology Binance Pay. In addition, using Travala, users can also book over 700,000 hotels from Expedia Group.

However, the use of crypto for payments among airlines is still not widespread. Apart from airBaltic, LOT Polish Airlines also accepts payments in Bitcoin since 2015. Norwegian Air also revealed in 2020 that the crypto trading platform Norwegian Block Exchange (NBX) developed a payment infrastructure to allow airline customers to pay with digital currencies.

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