Markets · The Chart Desk
Chart Desk: USDC Supply Falling, ETH Fees, and ETH Burns
Circle's USDC supply on Ethereum fell by about 570.1 million tokens in the week to Oct. 20, Ethereum's median base fee stayed below 0.1 gwei every day, and the network burned about 205 ETH in base fees.
Circle's USDC supply on Ethereum fell by about 570 million tokens in the week to Oct. 20 while fees stayed near the floor. Three charts, each built from Le Coin's own reads of Ethereum contracts and block data, show the week. No price data is used.
USDC supply fell on five of six days
Fig. 1. Circle's USDC supply on Ethereum fell by about 570.1 million tokens in the week to Oct. 20, a 1.18% drop, by Le Coin's reads of the token contract at each day's close (source 1). Tether's USDT supply on Ethereum barely moved.
USDC's totalSupply on Ethereum stood at 48.228 billion tokens at the Oct. 14 close and 47.658 billion at the Oct. 20 close (source 1). The path was not a straight line. Supply slipped for three days, rose to 48.173 billion on Oct. 18, then fell 323 million the next day and another 192 million the day after.
| Ethereum totalSupply (bn tokens) | Oct. 14 close | Oct. 20 close |
|---|---|---|
| USDC | 48.228 | 47.658 |
| USDT | 88.303 | 88.303 |
Circle mints USDC when customers deposit dollars and burns it when they redeem, and a token that moves to another chain through Circle's own transfer route is burned on the source chain as well. A fall in Ethereum supply therefore means USDC was redeemed or left Ethereum; these reads cannot say which.
USDT's Ethereum supply was 88,302,633,055.70 tokens through Oct. 18 and 88,302,623,529.98 from Oct. 19, a change of 9,525.72 tokens (source 2). That figure includes tokens Tether holds in its own treasury that are not issued.
In Le Coin's view, one week of a 1.18% decline is a data point, not a trend. These are Ethereum figures only, so they say nothing about USDC on Solana, Base or other chains, and nothing about Circle's total issuance.
Fees stayed near the floor
Fig. 2. Ethereum's median base fee stayed below 0.1 gwei on every ET day from Oct. 15 to Oct. 20 (source 3). Blocks sat right at the half-full target that holds the fee steady.
The daily median ranged from 0.0439 gwei on Oct. 18 to 0.0896 gwei on Oct. 19 (source 3). The figures come from every block in the range, 7,172 to 7,182 blocks a day.
Under EIP-1559, the base fee rises when blocks are more than half full and falls when they are less. Mean gas used per block sat between 50.5% and 50.7% of the limit each day (source 3), right at that target. Blocks were busy enough to hold the fee steady, but not enough to push it up.
In Le Coin's view, the USDC outflow did not come with any rush for block space. The busiest-fee day, Oct. 19, was also USDC's largest one-day decline, but one day is too thin to tie the two together.
Ethereum burned about 205 ETH in base fees
Fig. 3. Ethereum burned about 205 ETH in base fees over the seven ET days from Oct. 14 to Oct. 20 (source 4). The daily burn ranged from 48.87 ETH on Oct. 14 to 11.98 ETH on Oct. 18.
The total comes from Le Coin's reads of every block header in the range, 50,231 blocks from 26,188,208 to 26,238,438 (source 4). Each block's burn is its base fee multiplied by its gas used. Blob fees are excluded.
The daily figure swung widely, climbing back to 45.70 ETH on Oct. 20 after the Oct. 18 low.
| ETH burned in base fees | ETH |
|---|---|
| Oct. 14 (high) | 48.87 |
| Oct. 18 (low) | 11.98 |
| Week, Oct. 14 to Oct. 20 | 205.07 |
Under EIP-1559, the base fee is destroyed rather than paid to validators. Gas used barely changed from day to day, so the swings in the burn came from the fee level, and mostly from short fee spikes that the medians in Fig. 2 smooth over: the average fee per unit of gas on Oct. 20 was about 0.21 gwei, three times that day's median. Oct. 18 had both the lowest median fee and the lowest burn.
These reads do not link the burn to the USDC outflow. The burn rebounded from the Oct. 18 trough on Oct. 19 and Oct. 20, the two days USDC supply fell hardest, but fees are set by activity across the whole network.
In Le Coin's view, at fees this close to the floor, a full week's burn is small, and this chart says nothing about issuance to validators or net change in supply.
Also this week
Strategy reported buying 267 BTC between Oct. 12 and Oct. 18, bringing its holdings to 848,517 BTC, in an 8-K filed Oct. 19 (source 5).
Sources
- Le Coin eth_call totalSupply() reads, Circle USDC contract 0xA0b86991c6218b36c1d19D4a2e9Eb0cE3606eB48, Ethereum mainnet via dRPC, https://drpc.org (accessed Oct. 21, 2026, 11:47 p.m. ET)
- Le Coin eth_call totalSupply() reads, Tether USDT contract 0xdAC17F958D2ee523a2206206994597C13D831ec7, Ethereum mainnet via dRPC, https://drpc.org (accessed Oct. 21, 2026, 11:47 p.m. ET)
- Le Coin eth_feeHistory reads, blocks 26,195,381 to 26,238,438, Ethereum mainnet via dRPC, https://drpc.org (accessed Oct. 21, 2026, 11:47 p.m. ET)
- Le Coin eth_getBlockByNumber reads (baseFeePerGas, gasUsed, gasLimit) of every Ethereum mainnet block 26,188,208 to 26,238,438, plus eth_feeHistory over the same range, via dRPC, https://drpc.org (accessed Oct. 22, 2026, 12:08 a.m. ET)
- Strategy Inc., Form 8-K filed Oct. 19, 2026, accession 0001193125-26-424688, SEC EDGAR, https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1050446/000119312526424688/mstr-20261019.htm (accessed Oct. 21, 2026, 11:58 p.m. ET)
Holding the Corner.
Not financial advice.