Stablecoins and Rollups: Five Charts on the Top Chains and Tokens in the Ethereum Ecosystem

Table of contents:

Stablecoin TVL by chain

Top stablecoins by TVL across all rollups

Total rollup TVL versus Stablecoin share of TVL

Rollups by number of unique stablecoins

TVL-adjusted transactions versus Stablecoin share of TVL

With the passing of yesterday’s GENIUS Act in the Senate, the U.S. now has its first federal framework for stablecoin regulation. That news follows other bullish indicators for stablecoins’ future:

• Stripe’s acquisition of Bridge
• Circle’s successful IPO
• Shopify integrating stablecoin payments
• Amazon and Walmart considering issuing stablecoins
• Meta considering stablecoin-based cross-border payments network

Stablecoins have long been a crucial part of the crypto ecosystem, enabling millions of users to lock in trading gains, hold funds onchain without volatility, and send money across borders cheaply. For residents of countries with volatile fiat currencies, stablecoins have been a lifeline for preserving life savings. Recent developments in stablecoins are enabling issuers and crypto builders to double down on existing use cases, introduce unique new yield mechanisms, and expand stablecoin payments into the web2 economy. 

But what role do stablecoins play in the rollup ecosystem? A huge one. We’ll break it down in five charts below, looking at the top tokens and rollups for stablecoins in the Ethereum ecosystem.

Stablecoin TVL by chain

While TVL grabs the headlines, stablecoin TVL is also important. In fact, it can be a more useful metric for analyzing where the most liquid and transaction-oriented capital is concentrated, as stablecoins are more often used for payments and trade settlement, whereas many of the other tokens on rollups are often held for gas or speculation. 

The leading chains for stablecoin TVL tend to be large, general-purpose DeFi chains with deep liquidity pools and user bases actively engaged in trading, lending, and other financial operations that demand stable assets. Notable chains whose stablecoin TVL ranking outdoes their overall TVL ranking include:

• Arbitrum: 1st in stablecoin TVL, 2nd in overall TVL
• Unichain: 4th in stablecoin TVL, 5th in overall TVL
• Celo: 6th in stablecoin TVL, 11th in overall TVL

All strong ecosystems with significant economic activity. 

Top stablecoins by TVL across all rollups

Across all rollups, USDC dominates at $10.36 billion in combined TVL, with USDT next at $3.00 billion. While this may seem surprising considering USDT’s higher overall market capitalization ($155.6 billion vs. $61.5 billion), keep in mind that a large share of USDT supply is on the TRON blockchain. USDC has focused more on the Ethereum ecosystem, with its Bridged USDC standard and billions natively minted on rollups.

USDT and USDC’s dominance alone mean that most stablecoin TVL comes from fully-backed stablecoins – together, they make up $13.4 billion of the $15.5 billion in total stablecoin TVL across rollups. However, most of the remaining value comes from stablecoins with significant crypto token backing or algorithmic backing, such as USDS, sUSDS, DAI, and USDX.

As new entrants like Agora's AUSD gain traction by sharing yield with rollups, it'll be interesting to see how these rankings change.

Total rollup TVL versus Stablecoin share of TVL

The chart above lets us visualize how much of TVL for the biggest rollups comes from stablecoins. 

The biggest rollups tend to have between 20% and 50% of overall TVL in stablecoins. Polygon POS is one chain on the higher end of that spectrum at 50% stablecoin TVL, which fits with its focus on stablecoin payment use cases. OP Mainnet, on the other end of the spectrum, has about 21% stablecoin TVL – more of its overall TVL comes from ETH and its native OP token.

Three rollup-based trading networks—Orderly Network, Reya, and Paradex—have TVL that is almost entirely in stablecoins. Each chain is purpose-built for CLOB perps trading, where users post stablecoin collateral almost exclusively. Because these chains funnel deposits into margin rather than AMM or lending pools, their stablecoin share of TVL is far higher than on general-purpose DeFi chains.

Overall, the average rollup gets 41% of overall TVL from stablecoins, while the median is 35%. 

Rollups by number of unique stablecoins

A more diverse array of stablecoins gives users more choice in the tokens they turn to for collateral and onchain volatility-free storage. Different stablecoins can cater to different preferences around collateralization, centralization, yield versus risk, and more. Overall, Arbitrum leads by a wide margin at 33 unique stablecoins represented in its RVL, with Base second at 19. 

TVL-adjusted transactions versus Stablecoin share of TVL

Do more stablecoins mean more transactions? In order to answer this question, we plotted rollups by stablecoin share of TVL versus transactions per $1 million in TVL over the 30-day period of May 14 to June 13, 2025. Adjusting for TVL allows us to account for the fact that a higher-TVL chain will generally see more transactions than a lower-TVL chain designed for the same use case.

Overall, we see a modest positive relationship between stablecoin share of TVL and increased transaction activity. Notable chains here include Ink, which has both a higher stablecoin TVL share than other general-purpose DeFi chains and more TVL-adjusted transactions. Celo stands out too as an outlier in TVL-adjusted transaction activity at a higher-than-average 50% stablecoin share. 

Stablecoins are a rollup growth engine

As regulation and web2 integrations push stablecoins further into the mainstream, rollups that make it easy to mint, move, and collateralize with dollar-pegged assets are going to win. Whether you’re building a general-purpose DeFi hub or a purpose-built trading rollup, treating stablecoin UX as first-class infrastructure is quickly becoming table stakes. We look forward to seeing what the rest of 2025 and beyond hold for stablecoins.

Want help with your chain's stablecoin strategy? Contact Conduit.

Citation: All stablecoin data presented here comes from the L2Beat databas as of 6/13/25.