In just a few years, Ethereum's stablecoin ecosystem has transformed from an inconspicuous peripheral role to an irreplaceable core within the global digital finance landscape. In January 2018, when Ethereum's price first broke the $1400 mark, its total stablecoin market cap was merely $124,500. According to the latest data from DeFiLlama, as of May 6, 2025, this figure has skyrocketed to $124.5 billion, an increase of a million times. This is not just a change in a set of data; it is a strong testament to Ethereum's status as the 'settlement layer' for global digital dollar liquidity.
Who is leading this wave of stablecoins?
In this $124.5 billion stablecoin market, Tether (USDT) still firmly holds the leading position with a 52% share and a total market cap of $64.7 billion. Following closely is USDC, with a market cap of $37 billion. Other major participants include Ethena's USDe ($4.5 billion), SkyUSD ($3.8 billion), DAI ($3.6 billion), BlackRock's BUIDL, FDUSD, USDO, and PayPal's PYUSD.
Despite an overall slight market correction of 0.08% over the past week, the ecosystem remains active. Meanwhile, Ethereum's price fluctuated around $1804, rising 10.9% over two weeks, with a total market cap reaching $216 billion and daily trading volume hitting $9.2 billion. This is all happening as Ethereum makes its final push for the Pectra upgrade on May 7. The upgrade includes EIP-7251, which raises the validator staking cap from 32 ETH to 2048 ETH, a change believed to enhance network staking efficiency, strengthen decentralization, and optimize validator management.
The rise of stablecoins: driven by technology, regulation, and adoption
The global stablecoin market is now approaching $240 billion, nearing an all-time high. In just the last week of April 2025, the market added over $5 billion in supply. Longer-term data is even more compelling: the number of active stablecoin wallets surged from 19.6 million in February 2024 to 30 million in February 2025, a growth of 53%; during the same period, supply rose from $138 billion to $225 billion.
Tether still dominates the market, holding a 61% share of the global market, but the growth rate of alternatives such as USDC, USDe, and DAI is accelerating, driven by an increasingly diverse and mature ecosystem. The combined effects of global institutional interest, policy openness, and infrastructure advancements have allowed stablecoins to evolve from merely being 'payment tools' in the crypto domain to gradually becoming the underlying driving force for global payments, settlements, and financial innovations.
Payment giants like Mastercard and Stripe are entering the fray, accelerating the adoption of stablecoins.
Another hallmark of this stablecoin frenzy is the comprehensive 'embrace' by traditional financial giants. Mastercard unexpectedly became a strong advocate for stablecoins, launching a '360-degree' framework that enables 150 million merchants worldwide to accept digital dollars through its platform. It collaborated with Nuvei, Circle, Paxos, and others to build a complete infrastructure system that includes wallets, issuing, on-chain remittances, and instant settlements.
Stripe is also stepping up, launching its own stablecoin product supported by the dollar, planning to expand payment capabilities to emerging markets beyond North America and Europe. This means that the use of stablecoins has far surpassed the DeFi world and is penetrating wider areas such as global retail payments, cross-border settlements, and corporate fund flows.
Ethereum's 'invisible victory': the real power beyond price
Interestingly, while Ethereum's token price did not rise in tandem with these foundational growths—falling 45% in the first quarter of 2025, marking one of the 'worst quarters' in cryptocurrency history—the fundamental data tells a completely different story.
Bitwise's quarterly report indicates that in the first quarter of 2025 alone, the on-chain settlement amount of stablecoins on Ethereum reached $27.6 trillion, surpassing Visa's total settlement amount of $12 trillion in 2023. Ethereum is gradually completing its transformation from an 'ICO speculation chain' to a 'global settlement network'. With the expansion of Layer 2 networks like Arbitrum, Optimism, and Base, Ethereum's infrastructure has become more scalable, with transaction fees reduced to a median of $0.66, and developer activity still leading the industry.
More critically, the first quarter of 2025 marks a 'reconciliation' between digital currencies and mainstream institutional systems: a pro-crypto U.S. president took office, Bitcoin strategic reserves were established, SAB 121 restrictive policies were revoked, banks were authorized to custody crypto assets, and the SEC dismissed multiple crypto lawsuits... These policy shifts further solidified the legitimacy of digital assets as 'national strategic financial tools'.
Ethereum's true value: not just price fluctuations
Often, market news focuses solely on price fluctuations while overlooking the underlying ecological transformation. Ethereum's true advantage has never been limited to the price of ETH; it has become the preferred platform for global decentralized finance, stablecoin settlements, and smart contract applications. Even in the face of competition from high-performance new chains like Solana, Ethereum still maintains a core position in DeFi: Uniswap contributed over $1 billion in revenue, the Rollup ecosystem continues to grow, and most core activities related to the issuance, circulation, and settlement of stablecoins remain based on the Ethereum mainnet and its Layer 2 solutions.
The rise of stablecoins has propelled Ethereum from a 'blockchain laboratory' to a 'global financial infrastructure'. It now supports not just a wealth narrative for a crypto community, but a real backing for a trillion-dollar settlement value network.
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Disclaimer: The above content is for informational sharing only and does not constitute any investment advice! Investments carry risks; please exercise caution when entering the market.