Event Overview

Recently, Whale Alert detected a minting operation by USDC Treasury on Ethereum, involving 60 million USDC, which is approximately $60,010,470 according to on-chain annotations. Shortly after, almost the same amount of 60 million USDC (about $60,007,830) was destroyed, forming a complete loop of "rapid minting - rapid destruction." Within the same time window, the Treasury also completed several large transactions on Ethereum: including a minting of 80 million USDC followed by a destruction of 80 million USDC, as well as a single destruction of 100 million USDC, with the total minting and destruction for the day reaching several hundred million dollars. Extending to this week, according to the briefing, there was also a minting event of 250 million earlier this week, combined with a single minting record of 61,076,000 in mid-November, indicating that the supply adjustments of USDC on the Ethereum main chain have shown characteristics of "high frequency, large amounts, and paired transactions." From community feedback, such Treasury-level minting and destruction transactions have limited discussion on social media, with mainstream sentiment leaning towards a neutral interpretation of "routine liquidity management," without triggering significant FOMO or panic.

News and Data

From a time series perspective, the focal event occurred in the morning: around 09:10 UTC, USDC Treasury minted 60,000,000 USDC, corresponding to $60,010,470; about 5 minutes later, around 09:15 UTC, the same address destroyed 60,000,000 USDC, corresponding to $60,007,830, with both amounts being nearly symmetrical, sourced from Whale Alert's on-chain tracking data. Within this 24-hour period, the Treasury's operations were even more intensive: during the early hours, it first minted 80,000,000 USDC (approximately $80,010,280), followed by two separate destructions of 80,000,000 USDC and 100,000,000 USDC, totaling 180 million destroyed, corresponding to over $180 million, resulting in a net change for the day that showed a "frequent in-and-out, close to hedging" state. Compared to the single minting event of 61,076,055 in mid-November, this 60 million level minting and destruction falls within the Treasury's "regular large-scale operation range," not an anomalous event; on the other hand, there were records of total minting exceeding 1 billion and total destruction exceeding 300 million in late December, indicating that this 60 million is just a part of active liquidity operations. It is important to note that these large transactions almost all occurred on the Ethereum mainnet, further confirming that USDC has chosen Ethereum as its core clearing and settlement layer, closely related to its deep integration with mainstream DeFi protocols and Ethereum's mature infrastructure environment.

Funds and Sentiment

From a funding logic perspective, this paired minting and destruction is more akin to USDC's issuer conducting daily liquidity management to meet institutional redemption, over-the-counter settlement, and cross-platform clearing needs, rather than a one-time bearish or bullish signal. When institutions have demand for purchasing in fiat, USDC Treasury mints an equivalent amount of stablecoins on-chain; when on-chain holders redeem dollars or complete cross-system settlements, the corresponding USDC is concentrated and destroyed, achieving a synchronized contraction of on-chain supply and balance sheet. Since this model has appeared multiple times in 2025 at scales ranging from tens of millions to hundreds of millions, the community and KOLs have tended to adopt an "infrastructure perspective" towards Treasury-level transactions: Whale Alert's alerts are more viewed as public broadcasts of backend clearing status rather than direct trading signals. Although related tweets marked with "🔥" "💵" and other emotional symbols, the retweets and discussion volume were limited. Coupled with the year-end timing, large institutions often need to concentrate their adjustments and settlements of funds between exchanges, DeFi protocols, and over-the-counter clearing pools, which will temporarily increase the demand for USDC on one side, triggering a more intensive minting and destruction rhythm. In this context, the risk of misreading a single minting news lies in easily conflating the routine scale of 60 million with previous anomalous events at the 250 million level, thereby amplifying emotions into "continuous issuance" or "liquidity shocks," while ignoring the neutral information released by the simultaneous destruction actions.

Anchoring Mechanism

From a mechanism perspective, the minting and destruction of USDC essentially correspond to a bookkeeping process of fiat deposits and withdrawals, aimed at maintaining confidence in the 1:1 dollar peg, rather than resembling central bank "proactive monetary expansion" macro policy actions. Users or institutions deposit dollars into the issuer or its custodian bank account, after which the Treasury will mint an equivalent amount of USDC on-chain; when users redeem dollars or migrate assets out of the system, the corresponding USDC will be reclaimed and destroyed to ensure that there is no systemic deviation between the total on-chain supply and the underlying reserves. In recent operations, it can be observed that the scale of large daily minting and destruction is roughly symmetrical in value, for example, the 50 million destruction occurring shortly after the 60 million minting, or the 80,000,000 minting followed by 80,000,000 and 100,000,000 destructions within the same day. This "near-mirror" rhythm suggests that internal processes are handling settlements and reserve adjustments in batches to reduce the on-chain costs of frequent small operations. In a multi-chain environment, although USDC has expanded to multiple public chains, its core clearing activities remain concentrated on Ethereum, speculated to be related to Ethereum's higher security, compliance tool support, and greater recognition of Ethereum's ledger by mainstream institutions. This judgment is primarily based on on-chain distribution observations and industry consensus, and is of a speculative nature. The absence of sustained unilateral issuance or unilateral deflation in the short term indicates that USDC's supply is more closely following real settlement demand fluctuations, helping to reduce the decoupling pressure caused by excessive expansion or sharp contraction, thus providing a certain buffer in systemic risk management.

Bull-Bear Game

From a bullish perspective, the high-frequency minting and destruction of USDC on Ethereum can be interpreted as a signal of robust demand and active on-chain activity: only under the premise of sustained demand for over-the-counter settlements, institutional redemptions, and DeFi usage does the Treasury need to frequently adjust inventory at scales of tens of millions to hundreds of millions, which to some extent provides a stable channel for "dollar entry" and "settlement exit" for the overall liquidity of the crypto market. For participants who believe that stablecoins are the core infrastructure for pricing and trading crypto assets, this 60 million destruction is more like a routine heartbeat of the system's smooth operation. However, from a bearish or cautious perspective, this reliance on large adjustments by a centralized issuer and a single ledger also amplifies systemic and "black box" risks in tail scenarios: once issues arise with backend reserves, compliance audits, or operational management, large-scale minting could trigger a trust crisis and liquidity run in a short time. Historically, on certain extreme volatility days, the minting rhythm of USDC Treasury has often overlapped significantly with market risk events. Although current data is insufficient to establish a strict causal relationship, it is enough to remind traders to remain vigilant during large, anomalous unilateral issuances or concentrated destructions. Under current evidence, this 60 million level "minting followed by destruction" leans more towards a neutral operational event, but both bulls and bears, based on different information sets and risk preferences, may easily misinterpret: bulls may overlook the centralized risks behind concentrated operations, while bears may amplify the potential impact of routine settlements on prices, thus creating unnecessary noise fluctuations at the trading level.

Market Outlook

Looking ahead, against the backdrop of year-end fund settlements and institutional redemptions typically increasing, as long as the macro environment and regulatory expectations do not undergo sudden changes, the frequency and single-scale of USDC Treasury's operations on Ethereum are likely to remain at current high levels. However, this high-frequency operation does not automatically indicate a trend of unilateral expansion or unilateral contraction, but is more likely to continue to exhibit bidirectional fluctuations around a neutral range. For market participants hoping to extract effective signals, it is essential to closely track several types of indicators: first, the medium to long-term trend of the total on-chain USDC supply, rather than daily or single transaction data; second, the net balance changes of USDC across major centralized exchanges to assess risk preferences and margin structure changes on the exchange side; third, the dynamics of USDC stock and lending rates in major DeFi protocols to capture real funding demand in decentralized scenarios. In terms of potential risks, if a new round of regulatory tightening targeting stablecoins, reserve transparency disputes, or audit results falling short of expectations occur in the future, it may directly impact the market's trust in USDC's minting model and its 1:1 peg, thereby amplifying the probability of each large minting operation being interpreted by the market as an "anomalous signal." For investors, a more feasible strategy is to establish a framework: when observing that minting and destruction occur in pairs within a short time, with similar scales and no significant change in total supply, they should be regarded as "neutral operational data"; whereas when there are sustained unilateral large-scale issuances over several days, or when exchange and DeFi balances simultaneously expand or contract sharply, then consider whether to categorize them as "liquidity inflection point signals," and cross-validate with price, trading volume, and macro environment, rather than overreacting to a single alert from Whale Alert.

Join our community to discuss and grow stronger together!
Official Telegram community: https://t.me/aicoincn
AiCoin Chinese Twitter: https://x.com/AiCoinzh

OKX benefits group: https://aicoin.com/link/chat?cid=l61eM4owQ
Binance benefits group: https://aicoin.com/link/chat?cid=ynr7d1P6Z

免责声明：本文章仅代表作者个人观点，不代表本平台的立场和观点。本文章仅供信息分享，不构成对任何人的任何投资建议。用户与作者之间的任何争议，与本平台无关。如网页中刊载的文章或图片涉及侵权，请提供相关的权利证明和身份证明发送邮件到support@aicoin.com，本平台相关工作人员将会进行核查。