Dissecting the true usage map of stablecoins: Over 170 million global holders, with 90% flowing to DEX and CEX

Author: Dune
Translation: Felix, PANews

Recently, Dune partnered with Steakhouse Financial to release a stablecoin dataset that covers aspects such as holder composition, fund flows, on-chain activity classification, and circulation speed. This data can provide a basis for institutional analysis, research reports, compliance monitoring, and high-level decision-making. By interpreting the dataset, Dune revealed some real-world insights into the stablecoin market. Below are the details.

Everyone is citing stablecoin supply data. In every report, earnings call, and policy hearing, supply figures are everywhere. But aside from the figure “circulating over $300 billion,” how much do we really understand about stablecoins?

Who holds them? How concentrated is ownership? How fast do they circulate? On which blockchains do they operate? What are their actual uses—DeFi liquidity, payments, or just idle capital?

As Meta announced plans to integrate third-party stablecoin payments on its platform; Bridge received approval from the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to establish a national trust bank; Payoneer enabled stablecoin features for 2 million merchants; Anchorage Digital launched compliant stablecoin services for non-U.S. banks—institutions and regulators are entering in large numbers. They need answers far beyond just the supply figure.

We use Dune’s latest released stablecoin dataset to answer these questions. The data reveals the following:

Overview of Supply Status
As of January 2026, the fully diluted supply of the 15 largest stablecoins on EVM-compatible chains, Solana, and Tron reached $304 billion, a 49% increase from the same period last year. Tether’s USDT ($197 billion) and Circle’s USDC ($73 billion) still account for 89% of the market share.

By chain, Ethereum accounts for $176 billion (58%), Tron $84 billion (28%), Solana $15 billion (5%), and BNB Chain $13 billion (4%). Despite the total supply nearly doubling, the distribution across chains has remained almost unchanged over the past year.

Source: Dune

Apart from the two major stablecoins, 2025 is the “year of challengers.” USDS (Sky Ecosystem) grew by 376%, reaching $6.3 billion. PYUSD (PayPal) surged by 753%, reaching $2.8 billion. RLUSD (Ripple) skyrocketed from $580,000 to $1.1 billion, an 1,803% increase. USDG’s market cap grew 52 times. USD1’s market cap jumped from zero to $5.1 billion.

Not all challengers experienced growth. USD0 declined by 66%, and Ethena’s USDe peaked in October (nearly tripling) before ending the year up 23%. Even so, the group of competitors under USDT and USDC continues to expand significantly.

Who Holds Stablecoins
Most stablecoin datasets only show total supply. Because our dataset tracks wallet-level balances and address labels, we can identify who owns these stablecoins.

Source: Dune

On Ethereum and Solana, CEXs are the largest known holders, with a scale of $80 billion (up from $58 billion last year). The primary function of stablecoins remains trading and settlement infrastructure on exchanges. Whale wallets hold $39 billion. Yield protocol holdings nearly doubled to $9.3 billion, reflecting growth in on-chain yield strategies. Issuer addresses (treasuries and mint/burn contracts) jumped 4.6 times from $2.2 billion to $10.2 billion, directly indicating the scale of new supply entering the market.

Regarding label quality: only 23% of the supply is in completely unidentified addresses. For on-chain data, this is a very high identification rate, which is crucial for understanding the actual risk sources of stablecoins.

Holder Count Reaches 172 Million, But Concentration Is Very High
As of February 2026, 172 million unique addresses hold at least one of the 15 stablecoins. Among them, USDT accounts for 136 million, USDC 36 million, and DAI 4.7 million. These stablecoins are widely distributed: the top 10 wallets hold only 23-26% of the supply, with the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI)—a measure of economic concentration—below 0.03.

Source: Dune

However, the situation is very different for other stablecoins. The top 10 wallets hold between 60-99% of the supply. USDS, despite a circulation of $6.9 billion, is 90% concentrated in the top 10 wallets (HHI 0.48); USDF 99% in the top 10 (HHI 0.54); USD0 is the most extreme, with 99% in the top 10 wallets (HHI 0.84). This indicates that even among large holders, the supply is dominated by one or two wallets.

Source: Dune

This does not necessarily mean these stablecoins are problematic; some are newer, and some are intentionally managed by institutions. But it does mean their supply data should be treated differently from USDT or USDC. Concentration impacts de-pegging risk, liquidity depth, and whether supply reflects natural demand or demand from a few large participants. Only by tracking all holder balances—not just mint/burn events—can such analysis be performed.

Transfer Volume Reached $10.3 Trillion in January
In January, the transfer volume of stablecoins on EVM, Solana, and Tron reached $10.3 trillion, more than double January 2025. The distribution of on-chain transaction volume is notable and differs sharply from supply share:

Base’s supply is only $4.4 billion, yet it led with $5.9 trillion in transaction volume; Ethereum’s volume was $2.4 trillion; Tron $682 billion; Solana $544 billion; BNB Chain $406 billion.

Source: Dune

By token, USDC dominates with $8.3 trillion, nearly five times USDT’s $1.7 trillion, despite USDC’s supply being only 2.7 times smaller. USDC’s transfer speed and frequency are clearly much higher than USDT’s. DAI’s volume is $138 billion; USDS $92 billion; USD1 $43 billion.

Importantly, these data are objective and neutral. The dataset does not pre-filter transfers based on “real” economic activity, so totals may include flows related to arbitrage, bots, internal routing, or other automated behaviors. Our goal is to present an objective view of on-chain activity, allowing users to apply their own filters—such as removing bot-driven transactions, separating natural usage, or defining transaction activity measures that better reflect reality.

What Are Stablecoins Doing?
The transfer data is not only labeled as “transaction volume” but also classified into specific on-chain activities:

January Breakdown:
1. Market Infrastructure (DEX trading and liquidity):
DEX liquidity provision and extraction: $5.9 trillion. This is the largest single use case, reflecting stablecoins’ role as on-chain market-making assets.
DEX swaps: $376 billion. Direct trading activity via automated market makers.

Together, these indicate stablecoins mainly serve as trading collateral and liquidity infrastructure. Notably, transaction volume is concentrated in incentive-driven activities (like yield farming and capital optimization), not just pure trading demand.

2. Leverage and Capital Efficiency (Lending + Flash Loans):
Flash loans (borrowing and repayment): $1.3 trillion. Automated arbitrage and liquidation cycles.
Lending activities: supply, borrow, repay, withdraw—$137 billion. Reflecting short-term capital efficiency and structured credit on-chain.

3. Access Channels (CEXs and Bridges):
CEX flows: deposits ($224 billion), withdrawals ($224 billion), internal transfers ($151 billion), totaling $599 billion.
Cross-chain bridge deposits and withdrawals: $28 billion. These flows show stablecoins’ key role in CEXs and cross-chain settlement.

4. Issuance Layer (Currency Operations):
Issuer activities: minting ($28 billion), burning ($20 billion), de-pegging adjustments ($23 billion), other activities—totaling $106 billion, nearly five times last year’s $42 billion.

5. Yield Protocols
Yield protocol activity: $2.7 billion. A smaller but structurally important part, closely related to structured strategies and on-chain asset management.

Overall, 90% of transfer volume flows through identified activity categories, providing detailed insight into stablecoins’ on-chain technical stack and liquidity at each layer.

Circulation Speed: Same Token, Different Worlds
Daily turnover rate (transfer volume divided by supply) is perhaps the most underestimated metric in stablecoin analysis. It reflects the activity level of stablecoins as a medium of exchange, not just holdings.

Among the tokens analyzed, USDC and USDT stand out again, despite differences.

Source: Dune

USDC on Layer 2 and Solana has the fastest circulation speed. On Base, USDC’s daily circulation speed reaches 14 times, mainly driven by high-frequency DeFi trading activity. On Solana and Polygon, about 1x; on Ethereum, 0.9x—almost all supply is traded daily.

USDT is fastest on BNB and Tron. On BNB Chain, the daily speed is 1.4x, reflecting active trading; on Tron, 0.3x, with lower volume but stable activity, consistent with its role as a primary cross-border payment channel. On Ethereum, USDT’s daily speed is only 0.2x, with most of its $100 billion+ supply idle.

USDe and USDS have slower transaction speeds, which is intentional. USDe on Ethereum has a daily speed of only 0.09x; USDS about 0.5x. Both are designed as yield-bearing stablecoins: USDe is often staked in sUSDe to capture Ethena’s delta-neutral strategy yields; USDS is deposited into Sky Savings Rate for protocol-backed returns. A large portion of their supply remains idle in savings contracts, Aave, or structured yield cycles. Low circulation speed is not a disadvantage but an advantage: these assets are designed to accumulate yield, not just circulate.

Chain matters more than tokens. PYUSD on Solana has a daily speed of 0.6x, four times Ethereum’s 0.1x. The same token exhibits very different usage patterns across ecosystems.

Supply and volume reflect parts of the picture. Circulation speed links the two, measuring whether stablecoins on a specific chain operate as active infrastructure or idle funds.

Beyond USD
This analysis focuses on 15 USD-pegged stablecoins, but the full dataset covers more. It tracks over 200 stablecoins across more than 20 currencies: 17 Euro tokens ($990 million supply), Brazilian real ($14.1 million), Japanese yen ($130 million), as well as tokens denominated in Nigerian naira, Kenyan shilling, South African rand, Turkish lira, Indonesian rupiah, Singapore dollar, and others.

Source: Dune

Non-USD stablecoins currently have only $1.2 billion in supply, but 59 tokens are spread across six continents, accounting for nearly 30% of the total tokens in the dataset. Infrastructure for local currency stablecoins is being built on-chain, and data tracking their development is ready.

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