Ethereum leads stablecoin market cap growth, adding $243M in a week
Ethereum, Arbitrum One and Base added $403.1M in stablecoin supply in a week, Ethereum taking $243M of it. USDT holds roughly 50% of Ethereum's supply and the total market stayed near $300B.
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Ethereum, Arbitrum One and Base together added $403.1 million in stablecoin supply over seven days, with Ethereum contributing about $243 million of that. No single headline event appears to have triggered the move.
Where the dollars landed
Ethereum’s stablecoin supply now sits at roughly $146.5 billion, according to DefiLlama, making it the largest single home for dollar-pegged tokens tracked on-chain. It holds about 47-48% of total on-chain stablecoin supply across the major networks DefiLlama tracks.
The percentage moves came from the Layer-2s. Arbitrum’s supply rose 2.08% over the seven days and Base posted 0.86%. Ethereum’s own contribution was the largest in absolute dollars, which is the opposite of the ranking by rate of change. Reading only the dollar figure and reading only the percentage figure both produce a misleading picture of which network is gaining share.
Layer-2 networks are separate chains built on top of Ethereum that process transactions more cheaply and then settle back to the main network.
The issuer concentration underneath
USDT, issued by Tether, accounts for approximately 50% of Ethereum’s stablecoin supply on its own. USDC, issued by Circle, is the other large name on these chains.
That concentration is the part with consequences beyond a headline. Ethereum’s dollar liquidity leans heavily on a single issuer, so anything affecting Tether’s operations would ripple through a large share of on-chain activity. A lending protocol accepting stablecoins as collateral is taking on that issuer as an indirect counterparty, whether or not anyone names it that way.
Why one week is not a trend
Total stablecoin market capitalization has held between $300 billion and $306 billion. The $403.1 million weekly gain across three networks fits inside that band rather than breaking out of it, and the flat total is the more informative number. Capital is redistributing between chains, not expanding.
That reading matters because a single week is a snapshot. The absence of a news driver means the same growth could slow without warning, and the tight range suggests consolidation rather than a surge.
The three numbers to track next
Whether Ethereum’s share holds in the 47-48% range as Arbitrum and Base keep compounding faster in percentage terms. Whether USDT’s roughly 50% share of Ethereum supply moves in either direction. And whether total market capitalization finally breaks out of the $300-306 billion range, since until it does, chain-level growth mostly describes rotation between chains rather than new demand for dollars.