Every category where a model named USDC for a mid-market B2B company. Share is first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts; rank is within every product named in that category.

Category	Function	Share	Rank	Negative rate	Labels	Quadrant	Since September 2026
Stablecoin platforms	Treasury and cash	2%	11 of 141	6%	17	accepted challenger

Movement

This is the first edition on this tier, so no move can be computed for USDC yet. From the next edition this section shows, per buyer segment and per category, whether its share moved by more than the measured noise floor.

By model

How each model treated USDC across every prompt where it was named for a mid-market B2B company. Fourteen models, six prompts per category.

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Model	First choice	Mention	Negative	Labels
Claude Haiku 4.5	0	1	0	1
GPT-5.4 mini	0	0	0	0
Gemini 3.5 Flash	1	1	0	2
Perplexity Sonar	0	0	0	0
Grok 4.1 Fast	1	0	0	1
Mistral Small	1	0	0	1
DeepSeek V4 Flash	1	0	1	2
Llama 4 Maverick	0	0	0	0
Qwen 3.7 Flash	2	0	0	2
Kimi K2	2	0	0	2
GLM 4.7 FlashX	1	0	0	1
MiniMax M2.5	1	2	0	3
GPT-6 Luna	0	1	0	1
Muse Glimmer 30B	1	0	0	1

By framing

Which of the six questions produced the naming. By model says how often; this says asked what. The first-choice count on the right carries the marks of the models that produced it.

FramingLabels by classFirst choices

Direct0 labelsNone

Paraphrase1 labelNone

Comparative5 labels3not counted in share

Budget-constrained0 labelsNone

Scale-constrained5 labels2

Negative22 labels19not counted in share

First choiceAlternativeMentionNegative33 labels in all, every segment counted; 2 of the 24 first choices count toward share, since the comparative and negative framings do not. The bar is one segment per label class, to scale within the framing.

What the models said for it

Verbatim evidence the judge attached to positive labels.

“the industry standard remains sticking to established, fully-reserved, regulated centralized platforms (like USDC issued by Circle)” Qwen 3.7 Flash · Stablecoin platforms · negative prompt · first choice

“Major regulated stablecoins like USDC (Circle) and FRAX generally have better transparency and regulatory compliance” MiniMax M2.5 · Stablecoin platforms · negative prompt · first choice

“USDC (issued by Circle) is widely regarded as the industry benchmark for regulatory compliance and reserve transparency” Gemini 3.5 Flash · Stablecoin platforms · negative prompt · first choice

“USDC is ~80% in short-dated US Treasuries managed by BlackRock... It is the reference for USD in current business guidance” Muse Glimmer 30B · Stablecoin platforms · negative prompt · first choice

And against it

Verbatim evidence attached to negative labels. A warning on a product with few labels is a warning; on a product with many, it is one voice among them.

“While generally considered safe, USDC briefly dropped to $0.87 in March 2023” DeepSeek V4 Flash · Stablecoin platforms · negative prompt · soft negative

Named alongside

The products named in the same answers as USDC, over the 33 answers that named it. Took the first choice instead counts the answers where the other product was the first choice and USDC was named but was not.

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ProductSame answerTook the first choice insteadHead to head

TerraUSD14 of 330Not among the top eight

USDT13 of 330Not among the top eight

PYUSD12 of 330Not among the top eight

Tether12 of 330Not among the top eight

DAI11 of 330Not among the top eight

USDe8 of 330Not among the top eight

TUSD7 of 330Not among the top eight

EURC6 of 330Not among the top eight

BUSD4 of 330Not among the top eight

Tether USDT4 of 330Not among the top eight

A head-to-head page exists where both products are among a category's top eight. The other rows are the same fact without a page behind them, so they link to the product instead.

What carried it into the answer

The sites and pages cited by the answers that named USDC. A fact about retrieval, not a lever on the model.

Citations exist only for the models that return a source list, five of the fourteen in this edition, so these counts come from 28 of the 33 answers that named USDC and are not a share of its labels.

Domains cited

stripe.com18

eco.com10

spark.money10

frontiersin.org9

stablecoininsider.org9

mexc.com8

transak.com7

triple-a.io7

bvnk.com6

citizensbank.com6

No domain is on file for USDC, so its own site is not marked.

Pages cited

frontiersin.org/journals/blockchain/articles/10.3389/fbloc.2026.1797659/full9

transak.com/blog/which-stablecoin-should-your-business-use-in-2026-a-decision-guide7

citizensbank.com/corporate-finance/insights/stablecoins-for-mid-sized-businesses.aspx6

alchemy.com/overviews/enterprise-stablecoin-guide5

coinbureau.com/education/what-is-tether-usdt5

kpmg.com/kpmg-us/content/dam/kpmg/pdf/2025/stablecoins-kpmg.pdf5

spark.money/tools/which-stablecoin-should-i-use5

stablecoininsider.org/stablecoin-risks-in-20265

Pages are listed as the models cited them.

Search and answers

Where USDC stands in Google search beside where it stands in the models' answers.

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In search

Google, US estimates

Searches for its name, Google: not counted (“usdc”)
AI search demand for its name, est.: 531 a month
Its own site: No site of its own on file, so no site figures

In answers

This edition

Share of first choices

rank 11 of 141 in stablecoin platforms

Segment leader

23%

BVNK

First choices: 2 across its categories
Named in: 33 answers
Its own site cited: No site on file to match

Search figures are US estimates from DataForSEO, read October 5, 2026; AI search demand is its modeled, directional estimate, not a count of queries to any assistant. The answers are this edition's. Two measurements side by side: neither is read as the cause of the other.

Names read as USDC

What the judge wrote, as written, with how often. The vendor table decides that these count as USDC; a claim can dispute any of them.

USDC (Circle) 4USDC (USD Coin) 4Circle / USDC 1USDC (Circle/Coinbase) 1

Follow USDC

An email the morning each edition publishes: where this product moved, where it held, and by how much against the noise floor. One address, confirmed by a click; a stop link in every email.

Already following? Everything you follow, with a stop for each.

Is this your product?

Claim this page

Claiming is free and changes nothing in the data. A claimed page shows a verified contact who is told when each edition publishes and when USDC's standing changes by more than the noise floor; the right to propose corrections to the vendor table, meaning names the judge wrote that should or should not read as USDC, applied by version and listed in the change log; and a one-line description supplied by the vendor and marked as such.

What a new claim receivesHide what a new claim receives

A new claim receives the current edition's vendor brief for USDC by email, built from the raw record of the edition. It shows:

where USDC is named, by buyer and by framing, and which cells hold its first choices;
the claims the models make when they name it, ranked, with the strongest and the weakest quoted;
its vocabulary against the segment leader's, and the pages the models cited;
who was chosen in the answers that did not name USDC, and every reason the record gives;
a battlecard for each top rival: the head-to-head split, why they win, and the reservation quoted against them;
one page of published figures cleared to show a buyer.