Ethereum is losing ownership of crypto payments as Base moves $565B in stablecoins
Stablecoin activity is shifting from token supply to where tokenized dollars actually move. In June, adjusted stablecoin transaction volume on Visa Onchain Analytics reached about $1.79 trillion, well above February’s peak and sharply higher than May. Base led with roughly $565 billion in adjusted volume, narrowly ahead of Ethereum at about $562 billion. This matters because Base is a cheaper, faster Ethereum layer-2, so its lead suggests stablecoin payment activity is increasingly happening on L2s rather than on Ethereum mainnet. Visa’s adjusted methodology tries to filter out bots, internal transfers, and exchange noise to better reflect real settlement activity. USDC dominated June flows with about 67% of adjusted volume, versus USDT at around 32%, reinforcing USDC’s role in stablecoin settlement. The broader trend is that chain choice, fees, wallet distribution, and app integrations are becoming as important as stablecoin supply itself.
