Ethereum stablecoin transfer volume surpassed $8 trillion in Q4 last year…record high

The scale of stablecoin transfers processed on the Ethereum (ETH) network reached a record high in the fourth quarter of last year. Analysts interpret this as an expansion in the share of real-use transactions for payments.

On the 5th, according to crypto asset media CryptoNews, based on aggregation by on-chain data platform Token Terminal, Ethereum-based stablecoin transfer volume in Q4 2025 was about $8 trillion. This is nearly double the $4 trillion recorded in Q2.

The market interprets this increase as an indicator that Ethereum is cementing its position as the core settlement layer for dollar-based digital payments. In fact, over 2025 the issuance of stablecoins on the Ethereum network increased by about 43%. According to Blockworks data, the supply of stablecoins on Ethereum expanded from $127 billion at the start of the year to about $181 billion by year-end.

Some market participants note that this growth is linked more to increased demand for actual payments than to short-term arbitrage or speculative fund flows. One on-chain analyst wrote on X (formerly Twitter), "This shows that flows are not speculative but that real global payments are being made on-chain," adding, "institutional connections are still at an early stage."

Network activity metrics also support this. Etherscan data show that as of the end of December last year, Ethereum's daily transaction count reached a record 2.23 million transactions. This is about a 48% increase year-on-year. Monthly active addresses rose to 10.4 million in December, and the number of unique daily send/receive addresses also exceeded 1 million.

Beyond stablecoins, Ethereum maintains a leading position in the real-world asset (RWA) tokenization space. According to RWA data platforms, Ethereum accounts for about $19 billion of on-chain real-world assets, representing about 65% of the total. Including layer-2s and EVM-compatible networks, the share exceeds 70%.

In terms of stablecoin issuance share, Ethereum holds the largest share at about 57%, followed by Tron at around 27%. The largest issuer by total supply is Tether, with circulating stablecoins of about $187 billion, of which more than half are based on the Ethereum network.