Dune Analysis of Stablecoins: Mapping a US$300 Billion Dollar to Naira Market

Data on stablecoins circulate everywhere — in reports, executive presentations, regulatory hearings. But among the repeated mentions of “over $300 billion in circulation,” how much do we truly understand about these digital currencies? Who owns them? How are they distributed? How quickly do they move across networks? And what is their real purpose — infrastructure for decentralized trading, facilitating international payments, or serving as a store of value?

The landscape is changing. Meta announced its entry into the third-party stablecoin payments market. PayPal expanded its presence with its own stablecoin. Regulators like the US OCC are beginning to issue banking licenses for stablecoins. At the same time, emerging markets are seeing stablecoins denominated in Nigerian naira, Brazilian reais, and other local currencies — a phenomenon that warrants special attention. To answer these questions in depth, the blockchain analytics platform Dune, in partnership with SteakhouseFi, developed a revolutionary dataset on stablecoins that tracks not just volumes but exactly who is moving this capital.

Market Expansion: When Supply Reaches New Levels

By January 2026, the top 15 stablecoins mapped on Ethereum, Solana, and Tron had a fully diluted supply of $304 billion — a 49% increase from the previous year. This growth reflects how stablecoins have become increasingly essential in the global crypto infrastructure.

Tether’s USDT ($197 billion) and Circle’s USDC ($73 billion) continue to dominate, holding 89% of the combined market. By network, Ethereum accounts for 58% of the supply ($176 billion), while Tron represents 28% ($84 billion). Solana and BNB Chain share the remaining 14%. Notably, this distribution across chains remained remarkably stable throughout 2025, despite the total supply nearly doubling.

However, below the two giants, 2025 saw the rise of challengers. MakerDAO’s USDS exploded 376%, reaching $6.3 billion. PayPal’s PYUSD grew 753%, jumping to $2.8 billion in January and reaching $4.10 billion by March 2026. Ripple’s RLUSD multiplied 18 times. Meanwhile, USDG expanded 52 times, and USD1 went from zero to $2.15 billion — an accelerated adoption phenomenon highlighting the search for alternatives beyond the two dominant stablecoins.

Holder Dynamics: Concentration and Dispersion

One of the most revealing findings from the dataset is that not all stablecoins are the same. Analyzing 172 million unique addresses holding at least one of these 15 coins shows that concentration patterns vary drastically.

USDT and USDC exhibit truly decentralized distribution. Their top ten holders control only 23-26% of the supply, with a Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI) below 0.03 — indicating near-complete dispersion. Each other stablecoin tells a very different story. The top ten wallets of USDS hold 90% of the supply (HHI 0.48). At the extreme, USD0 shows near-monopolistic concentration: ten addresses control 99% with an HHI of 0.84.

This doesn’t necessarily imply risk. Many of these stablecoins are newly issued or intentionally created for institutional investors. But it does mean that interpreting “circulating supply” requires context — for USDT and USDC, the metric reflects natural demand; for USD0 or USDS, it may reflect strategies of a few large players.

On centralized exchanges, the picture differs. CEXs as a group hold $80 billion in stablecoins (up from $58 billion a year earlier), confirming that the primary function of these assets remains trading infrastructure. Large institutional investor wallets hold $39 billion, while yield farming protocols accumulate $9.3 billion — growth that reflects increasing sophistication in on-chain capital strategies.

Trillion Flows: Where Is the Money Going?

The truly staggering volume lies in flows. In January 2026, total stablecoin transaction volume across the three main networks hit $10.3 trillion — more than double the previous year. But these numbers need context.

Layer 1 led with $5.9 trillion in volume, despite its supply being only $4.4 billion — a clear sign that the same stablecoin circulates multiple times daily on this network. Ethereum recorded $2.4 trillion, Tron $682 billion, Solana $544 billion.

By coin, USDC dominated with $8.3 trillion in transfer volume — nearly five times USDT — despite its supply being 2.7 times smaller. This reveals a crucial truth: USDC is transferred more rapidly and more frequently, making it preferred for high-frequency trading and liquidity optimization.

But where exactly does this trillion go? The dataset classifies each transaction into categories:

• Market Infrastructure: $5.9 trillion in liquidity operations (adding/removing from DEX pools), plus $376 billion in direct swaps. Stablecoins serve as essential collateral for on-chain market-making.

• Leverage and Efficiency: $1.3 trillion in flash loans (automated arbitrage and liquidation cycles), plus $137 billion in traditional lending activities.

• Integration Channels: $599 billion between centralized exchanges and $28 billion in cross-chain bridge operations — connecting centralized and decentralized markets.

• Issuance Operations: $1.06 trillion in minting, burning, and rebalancing — nearly five times the $420 billion a year earlier, indicating intense supply management by issuers.

Circulation Speed: The Underappreciated Indicator

There’s an underrated metric that truly differentiates stablecoins: daily velocity (transaction volume divided by supply). It shows whether an asset is actively used or simply stored.

USDC exhibits impressive speeds on Layer 2. On Base, its daily rotation rate reaches 14x — nearly the entire supply circulates twice daily. On Solana and Polygon, it hovers around 1x daily. Even on Ethereum, it hits 0.9x — indicating extremely active circulation.

USDT shows a different pattern. It circulates more vigorously on payment networks: BNB Chain has a 1.4x daily rotation, reflecting active transactions. On Tron, the rotation is lower (0.3x) but remarkably stable, consistent with its role as a primary cross-border payment channel. On Ethereum, however, USDT rotates only 0.2x, with over $100 billion in supply largely inactive.

USDe and USDS intentionally circulate more slowly — this is a feature, not a flaw. USDe on Ethereum has a rotation of just 0.09x because it’s held in savings contracts (sUSDe) earning yields. USDS circulates at 0.5x because users are in yield protocols like Sky Savings Rate. These coins are designed to accrue yield, not to circulate constantly.

A fascinating data point: PYUSD on Solana rotates at 0.6x — more than four times faster than on Ethereum (0.1x). The same token, entirely different contexts. The blockchain network where it resides is as important as the coin itself.

Beyond the Dollar: Stablecoins in Naira, Real, and Euro

While the dollar market dominates, a crucial shift is happening in the peripheries: the rise of stablecoins denominated in local currencies.

The full dataset tracks over 200 stablecoins representing more than 20 fiat currencies. Euros have 17 tokens in circulation (offering $990 million). Brazilian real, Japanese yen, Nigerian naira, Kenyan shilling, South African rand, Turkish lira, Indonesian rupiah, and Singapore dollar — all have blockchain representations.

The casual “420 dollars to naira” transfers among traders exemplify this dynamic. In 2026, a user in Nigeria can move the equivalent of $420 in stablecoins almost instantly without intermediaries. This ability — to transfer value in digital naira with on-chain reliability — is revolutionary for emerging markets where access to hard currencies is limited and remittances cost 5-10%.

Current volume of non-dollar stablecoins is just $1.2 billion, but 59 tokens are already available across six continents. Infrastructure for local-currency stablecoins is being built in real time, with data already available to track it. This isn’t a niche future — it’s the present germinating.

A Vision Beyond Numbers

All of this stems from analysis based on a single dataset covering only 15 stablecoins in key indicators. The full dataset encompasses about 200 stablecoins across more than 30 blockchains. What makes this dataset truly unique is its classification layer — each transaction is mapped to its on-chain trigger and categorized using a deterministic framework.

Each balance is segmented by holder type and uses a standardized classification system across chains. This detail transforms chaotic blockchain logs into structured, comparable data, revealing not only trends but also risks of concentration, participation patterns, and capital flows between jurisdictions.

The future of stablecoin analysis won’t be about “how much is in circulation” — it will be about understanding who holds it, how it moves, its true velocity, and crucially, how local currencies like naira, real, and euro are creating alternatives to dollar dominance. The data now available provides this understanding. The question is: who will interpret it best?