作者：Odaily 星球日报

Author |@Dune

Compiled by | Odaily Planet Daily@OdailyChina)

Translator | Dingdang@XiaMiPP)

Editor's Note: While the market still habitually uses "total supply" to summarize the world of stablecoins, a set of more granular data is revealing another layer of reality. A single supply figure can only answer "how much," but cannot explain "who holds it," "how it circulates," or "why it remains." However, when we observe supply size, holding concentration, on-chain circulation velocity, and specific activity categories on the same graph, what we see is no longer a static stock, but a dynamic structure of how capital migrates, accumulates, leverages, and reprices on the chain.

This perspective is important because it may correct our intuitive judgments about the past year. The stark contrast between the crypto market's decline and the strong performance of US stocks, coupled with the panic amplified by whale selling and price pullbacks, easily leads one to believe that funds are withdrawing from the crypto world. However, the on-chain data presented in this article, as well as the signals released in Circle's recent earnings report, suggest that funds may not have disappeared. They may simply be temporarily withdrawing from high-volatility assets; at least the on-chain data indicates that they are entering incentive-based activities rather than driven by trading demand.

Everyone cites that supply figure. It appears in every report, every earnings call, every policy hearing. But beyond "over $300 billion in circulation," how much do we really know about stablecoins?

Who holds them? How concentrated are their holdings? How fast do they circulate, and on which chains are they primarily active? What are they actually used for—as DeFi liquidity, payment tools, or simply as "cash equivalents" for holding funds?

MetaJust announced plans to integrate third-party stablecoin payments into its platform; OCC (Office of the Comptroller of the Currency) has approved...StablecoinNational Trust Bank License;PayoneerAnnounced that it will provide stablecoin functionality for 2 million businesses;Anchorage DigitalThis involves non-US banks launching compliant stablecoin services. Institutions and regulators are accelerating their entry into the market, and the answers they need are clearly more than just a supply figure.

We used Dune's latest stablecoin dataset—a dataset developed by Dune and...Steakhouse FinancialCollaborative development—to answer some of these questions. Here are the results revealed by the data.

Supply panorama

As of January 2026, the 15 largest stablecoins on EVM, Solana, and Tron had a fully diluted supply of $304 billion, a year-on-year increase of 49%. USDT (US$197 billion) issued by Tether and USDC (US$73 billion) issued by Circle still accounted for 89% of the market share.

In terms of chain distribution, Ethereum holds $176 billion (58%), Tron $84 billion (28%), Solana $15 billion (5%), and BNB Chain $13 billion (4%).Even though the total supply has almost doubled, the distribution structure on this chain has hardly changed in the past year.

However, beneath the top two stablecoins, 2025 was a year of rising challengers. USDS (Sky/MakerDAO) grew by 376% to $6.3 billion; PYUSD (PayPal) grew by 753% to $2.8 billion; RLUSD (Ripple) jumped from $58 million to $1.1 billion, a staggering increase of 1803%; USDG expanded 52 times; and USD1 grew from zero to $5.1 billion.

Of course, not all challengers moved in the same direction. USD0 fell 66%; Ethena's USDe nearly tripled at its October peak, ultimately rising 23% for the year. Even so,The number of competitors in the tier below USDT and USDC is increasing significantly.

Who owns them?

Most stablecoin datasets only tell you the total supply. But because our dataset tracks balances at the wallet level and combines this with address tags, we can answer a more crucial question: Who is holding these stablecoins?

Within the EVM and Solana ecosystem, centralized exchanges are currently the largest identified category, holding $80 billion, up from $58 billion a year ago.Stablecoins remain primarily the infrastructure for exchange trading and settlement.

Whale wallets hold $39 billion; holdings in yield protocols are almost...DoubleThe figure reached $9.3 billion, reflecting the growth of on-chain yield strategies; issuer addresses—including treasury and minting/burning contracts—jumped from $2.2 billion to $10.2 billion, a significant increase.4.6 timesThis directly reflects the scale of new supply entering the market.

Regarding tag quality: Only 23% of the supply is in completely unidentified addresses. This is a remarkably high identification rate for on-chain data—crucial for understanding where stablecoin risks are actually distributed.

172 million shareholders, but with extremely high concentration.

As of February 2026, a total of 172 million unique addresses held at least one of these 15 stablecoins. USDT accounted for 136 million, USDC for 36 million, and DAI for 4.7 million. These three stablecoins are widely distributed.The top 10 wallets hold only 23%–26% of the supply.Its HHI (Hirschman Index, where 0 represents complete diversification and 1 represents a single holder) is below 0.03.

andOther stablecoinsThen a completely different picture emerges.The top 10 wallets often control 60% to 99% of the supply.Taking USDS as an example, although its circulating supply reaches $6.9 billion, 90% of it is concentrated in 10 wallets (HHI of 0.48). USDF has an even higher concentration, with the top 10 addresses holding 99% of the supply (HHI of 0.54). As for USD0, it goes almost to the extreme: while also 99% is concentrated in the top 10 wallets, its HHI is as high as 0.84, which means...Even within these top ten locations, the supply is primarily dominated by one or two addresses.

This doesn't mean these stablecoins are inherently flawed—some projects are relatively new, and some were designed from the outset to target institutional clients. However, it does mean their "supply" figures cannot be interpreted in the same way as USDT or USDC. Concentration of holdings directly impacts the risk of de-pegging, liquidity depth, and whether the so-called "supply size" represents genuine organic demand or merely reflects the allocation behavior of a few large holders. Such analysis is only possible when you have the balance data for each holder, rather than relying solely on aggregated supply derived from minting/burning events.

January 2026: Transfer volume: $10.3 trillion

In January 2026, the total transaction volume of stablecoins within the EVM, Solana, and TRON ecosystems reached $10.3 trillion, compared to January 2025.doubleabove.

The on-chain distribution contrasts sharply with the supply structure: Base leads with $5.9 trillion, despite its supply being only $4.4 billion; Ethereum is $2.4 trillion; Tron is $682 billion; Solana is $544 billion; and BNB Chain is $406 billion.

By token, USDC dominates with $8.3 trillion—almost half the market capitalization of USDT ($1.7 trillion).5 times—Although its supply is only about 1/2.7 of the latter. USDC obviously circulates faster and more frequently. DAI is $138 billion, USDS is $92 billion, and USD1 is $43 billion.

It is important to emphasize that this data is deliberately kept objective and neutral. This dataset does not pre-filter "real" economic activity according to any fixed criteria; therefore, the totals may include flows generated by automated activities such as arbitrage, bots, and internal routing. Instead of hard-coding judgments into the data, we provide an objective perspective, allowing users to choose their own filtering methods—whether it's removing bot transactions, identifying organic use, or defining more realistic metrics for transaction activity.

What exactly do stablecoins do?

This is precisely where the granularity of this dataset truly shines. Transfers are not simply labeled as "amounts," but are categorized into different activity types based on on-chain triggering mechanisms. This means we not only know that "$10 trillion has flowed," but also "why the flow occurred."

1. Market Infrastructure (DEX Trading and Liquidity)

• DEX Liquidity Supply and Withdrawal: $5.9 Trillion – The largest application scenario, reflecting the role of stablecoins as the underlying assets of on-chain listed companies.

• DEX Exchange: $376 billion – Direct trading activity on automated market makers.

Both combined indicate that stablecoins are primarily transaction collateral and liquidity infrastructure. Interestingly, trading volume is concentrated in...Incentive-driven liquidity mining and proactive capital optimization activities, rather than purely transactional needs.

2. Leverage and Capital Efficiency (Loan + Flash Loan)

• Flash loans (borrow and repay): $1.3 trillion – an automated arbitrage and liquidation cycle.

• Lending activities (deposits, lending, repayments, withdrawals): $137 billion – representing on-chain short-term capital efficiency and structured credit layers.

3. Entrance and Exit Channels (CEX and Cross-Chain Bridges)

• CEX liquidity – Deposits ($224 billion), Withdrawals ($224 billion), Internal Transfers ($151 billion): Total $599 billion.

• Cross-chain bridge access: $28 billion – demonstrating the function of stablecoins as settlement channels between cross-chain and centralized platforms.

4. Issuance Layer (Currency Operations)

• Issuer operations—minting ($28 billion), burning ($20 billion), anchor rebalancing ($23 billion) and other operations: totaling $106 billion, nearly five times the $42 billion a year ago.

5. Revenue Agreement

• Revenue Protocol Activities: $2.7 billion – a smaller scale, but significant in terms of structured strategies and on-chain asset management.

Overall, 90% of the transfer volume flows through the identified activity categories, providing us with a detailed view across all layers of the on-chain stack.

Circulation velocity: Same token, different worlds

Daily velocity of circulation (trading volume divided by supply)Perhaps the most overlooked indicator in stablecoin analysis. It reveals whether stablecoins are actively used as a medium of exchange or are simply held.

Among the tokens we analyzed, USDC and USDT once again stood out, but with different characteristics.

USDC has the fastest circulation speed on L2 and Solana.On Base, USDC has a daily circulation velocity of up to 14x – an astonishing figure driven by high-frequency DeFi activity; it’s around 1x on Solana and Polygon; and it reaches 0.9x on Ethereum, with nearly the entire supply flowing out almost every day.

USDT is fastest on BNB Chain and Tron.On BNB Chain, the ratio reached 1.4x, reflecting active trading; on Tron, it was 0.3x, with lower but exceptionally stable trading volume, consistent with its role as a primary channel for cross-border payments. On Ethereum, USDT only saw a 0.2x increase.More than $100 billion of supply is mostly idle.

USDe and USDS are slower, but this is intentional.USDe has a daily velocity of only 0.09x on Ethereum, while USDS is at 0.5x. Both are yield-generating stablecoins: USDe is typically staked as sUSDe to capture yields from Ethereum's Delta-neutral strategy; USDS is deposited into the Sky Savings Rate Mechanism to receive protocol-subsidized yields. Therefore, a significant portion of the supply remains in savings contracts, lending markets like Aave, or structured yield loops. This low velocity is not a flaw, but rather a characteristic—these assets are designed to accumulate yield, not circulate frequently.

The differences between blockchains are often more important than the tokens themselves. For example, PYUSD has a daily circulation velocity of 0.6 times on Solana, which is four times that on Ethereum (0.1 times). The same token exhibits completely different usage patterns in different ecosystems.

Supply and transaction volume each tell part of the story, while velocity of circulation connects the two—revealing whether a stablecoin on a given chain is active infrastructure or dormant capital.