Author: Frank, PANews
Since 2024, the global stablecoin market has grown by 80.7%, breaking through $235 billion, with USDT and USDC jointly contributing 86% growth and continuing to dominate the market. Puzzlingly, the incremental funds of hundreds of billions of dollars on Ethereum and TRON chains have not driven the Altcoin market to simultaneously surge as in previous cycles. Data shows that for each new dollar of stablecoins, only $1.5 of Altcoin market value is leveraged, an 82% reduction compared to the previous bull market.
In this article, PANews will analyze the comprehensive data of stablecoins to interpret the ultimate crypto question brought by stablecoin growth: Where did the money go? As exchange balances surge and DeFi protocol staking volumes rise, traditional financial institutions' over-the-counter trading, cross-border payment scenarios, and emerging market currency replacement demands are quietly reshaping the capital flow map of the cryptocurrency world.
Stablecoin Market Value Increases by Hundreds of Billions, Ethereum and TRON Still Contribute 80% of Growth
According to defillama data, from the beginning of 2024 to now, stablecoin issuance has grown from $130 billion to $235 billion, with an overall increase of 80.7%. The main growth still comes from USDT and USDC stablecoins.
On January 1, 2024, USDT's issuance was $91 billion, and by March 31, 2025, it reached $144.6 billion, an increase of about $53.6 billion, contributing 51% of the growth. USDC's issuance grew from $23.8 billion to $60.6 billion during the same period, accounting for about 35% of the growth. These two stablecoins not only occupy 87% of the market share but also contributed 86% of the growth.
Looking at chain-level data, Ethereum and TRON remain the two public chains with the largest stablecoin issuance. Ethereum accounts for 53.62% of stablecoin issuance, while TRON accounts for about 28.37%, totaling 81.99%.
Ethereum's stablecoin increment from January 1, 2024, to April 3, 2025, was about $58 billion, with a growth rate of 86%, almost identical to the issuance growth rate of USDT and USDC. TRON's growth rate was about 34%, lower than the overall stablecoin growth rate.
The third-ranked public chain is Solana, with an increase of $12.5 billion in issuance, a growth rate of 584.34%. Fourth is Base, with a $4 billion increase, a growth rate of 2,316.46%.
Among the top ten, Hyperliquid, TON, and Berachain started stablecoin issuance within the past year. These three added about $3.8 billion in stablecoin issuance, contributing 3.6% of stablecoin growth. Overall, Ethereum and TRON remain the primary stablecoin markets.
Each $1 of New Funds Only Leverages $1.5 of Altcoin Market Value
Although stablecoin on-chain growth is rapid, the Altcoin market value during the same period is not ideal.
For comparison, in March 2020, the total Altcoin market value was about $39.8 billion (excluding BTC, ETH), and by May 2021, it rose to $813.5 billion, an increase of about 19.43 times. During the same period, stablecoin data grew from $6.14 billion to $99.2 billion, an increase of about 15 times, essentially synchronized.
In this bull market phase, stablecoin market value increased by 80%, but the total Altcoin market value only grew by 38.3%, an increase of about $159.9 billion.
In the 2020-2021 cycle, for each dollar of stablecoin growth, the total Altcoin market value rose by $8.3. However, in the 2024-2025 cycle, for each dollar of stablecoin increase, the Altcoin market value only rose by $1.5. This significantly reduced ratio suggests that new stablecoins are not being used to purchase Altcoins.
Where did the money go? This is a key question.
(Note: The translation continues in the same manner for the rest of the text, maintaining the specified translations for specific terms.)From the perspective of token holders, the top USDC addresses are primarily from DeFi protocols. Taking Ethereum as an example, the largest USDC holder is the Sky (MakerDAO) address, holding 4.8 billion tokens, accounting for about 11.9%. In July 2024, this address held only 20 million tokens, which increased 229 times in less than a year. Sky's USDC is mainly used as collateral for its stablecoins DAI and USDS. The growth of this address still represents the demand for stablecoins from DeFi protocol TVL.
Aave is the fourth-largest USDC holder on Ethereum. On January 1, 2024, Aave held about 45 million USDC, which increased to 1.32 billion USDC by March 12, 2025, a growth of approximately 1.275 billion dollars, accounting for 7.5% of the new USDC issuance on Ethereum.
From this perspective, the new USDC on Ethereum is mainly due to the growth of staking products. At the beginning of 2024, Ethereum's total TVL was about $29.7 billion, and although it has recently declined, it still has $49 billion in stock (with the highest TVL reaching $76 billion). Calculated based on $49 billion, the TVL growth rate on Ethereum can reach 64.9%, which is far greater than the growth of altcoins last year and close to the overall stablecoin growth rate.
However, in terms of scale, although the TVL on Ethereum has grown by $19.3 billion, there is still a significant gap compared to the $58 billion growth of Ethereum stablecoins. Excluding the new issuance contributed by exchanges, staking protocols have not fully absorbed these stablecoin increments.
Emerging Scenarios: Paradigm Shift from Cross-Border Payments to Institutional Transactions
In addition to the demand for stablecoins from DeFi growth, consumer payments, cross-border remittances, and financial institution over-the-counter trading may be new demands for stablecoin growth.
According to multiple official Circle materials, stablecoin scenarios are gradually showing their potential in cross-border remittances and consumer payments. A report by Rise shows that approximately 30% of global remittances are made through stablecoins. This proportion is particularly significant in Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa. Retail and professional stablecoin transfers in these regions grew by over 40% year-on-year from July 2023 to June 2024.
According to a report released by Circle, the net USDC minted by Zodia Markets under Standard Chartered Bank reached $4 billion in 2024 (Zodia Markets is an institutional digital asset brokerage company providing services including over-the-counter trading and on-chain foreign exchange for global clients).
Another Latin American retail payment company, Lemon, has customers holding over $137 million in USDC, with users primarily using stablecoins for retail payments.
In addition to demand from different scenarios, the different ecosystem structures of various chains have also created different stablecoin demands. For example, the MEME craze on the Solana chain stimulated DEX trading demand. According to PANews's incomplete statistics, the TVL of USDC trading pairs (top 100) on the Solana chain is about $2.2 billion. Calculated based on USDC accounting for half, the deposited funds are approximately 1.1 billion USDC, accounting for 8.8% of USDC issuance on the Solana chain.
Crypto Market Shifting from "Speculative Bubble" to "New Financial Product"
After analyzing stablecoins, PANews found it difficult to identify a primary driver of stablecoin growth, and thus unable to explain where the market money went. However, looking back, we may have reached a series of complex conclusions.
1. The market cap of stablecoins is continuously growing, but these funds clearly have not massively flowed into the altcoin market to become the initial momentum for the altcoin season.
2. From the Ethereum market, about half of the USDT growth flowed into exchanges, but it seems more likely to be used to purchase BTC (as the altcoin and Ethereum markets have not significantly risen) or exchange financial products. The remaining growth demand may be absorbed by DeFi protocols. Overall, funds flowing to Ethereum are more focused on the stable returns of staking and lending protocols. The crypto market's attraction to traditional funds may no longer be crazy price fluctuations, but a new type of financial product.
3. Changes in new scenarios, with traditional financial institutions like Standard Chartered Bank entering the crypto market, have become a new demand for stablecoins. Additionally, underdeveloped regions are increasingly choosing stablecoins due to poor infrastructure and unstable local currency exchange rates. However, the data for this part is not yet fully calculated, and we do not know the specific proportion.
4. Stablecoins have different narrative demands on different chains. For example, Solana's growth demand may come from the trading heat brought by MEME. New public chains like Hyperliquid, Berachain, and TON have also brought certain fund demand.
Overall, this capital migration reveals that the crypto market is experiencing a paradigm shift. Stablecoins have broken through the boundaries of a simple trading medium and become a value channel connecting traditional finance and the crypto world. On one hand, altcoins have not received large-scale blood transfusion from stablecoin growth. On the other hand, institutional financial product needs, payment requirements in emerging markets, and the maturity of on-chain financial infrastructure are pushing stablecoins to a broader value-bearing stage. This may signal that the crypto market is quietly moving towards a historical turning point from "speculation-driven" to "value precipitation".
