USDT on the TRON network (TRC-20) has officially surpassed Bitcoin in payment activity on the gift card platform CoinsBee during the 2026 fiscal year. Data covering a 90-day period from June 4 through September 1 shows that USDT on TRON generated approximately 1.8 times more completed payments than Bitcoin and 1.9 times more than Ethereum. This trend marks a significant shift in retail crypto usage, as TRC-20 USDT now accounts for 16.23% of CoinsBee’s total year-to-date payments, up from just 9.92% in 2025.
The surge in TRON-based stablecoin usage is largely attributed to the network's efficiency and cost-effectiveness compared to the Bitcoin and Ethereum mainnets. Within the USDT ecosystem on CoinsBee, the TRC-20 standard accounted for 44.6% of the total transaction count and a massive 64.5% of total USDT turnover. For US-based users and global consumers using platforms like CoinsBee to bridge crypto into the real-world economy, the low transaction fees associated with TRON have become more critical than the investment prestige of older blockchain assets.
From a market perspective, this data underscores the evolving role of stablecoins as the primary medium of exchange within the digital asset economy. While Bitcoin remains the dominant store of value and investment vehicle, its utility for small-to-medium retail transactions is being challenged by high-speed, low-cost settlement layers. Regulatory scrutiny on stablecoins in the US continues to evolve, but consumer behavior in 2026 suggests that transaction fees remain the ultimate deciding factor for everyday crypto spending.
Investors and analysts should note that these figures are specific to CoinsBee and may not represent the entirety of global crypto payment volumes. However, a 2% promotional discount for USDT-TRC transactions running from late September through early October 2026 is expected to further cement TRON’s lead on the platform. Moving forward, the industry should watch whether other payment processors report similar migrations from volatile assets to stablecoins on alternative Layer 1 networks.