Ether advances vs Bitcoin as stablecoin supply hits $158B

What to Know:

• Active stablecoins boost Ethereum usage, increasing gas burn and tightening ETH supply.
• Larger on-chain dollar base catalyzes rotations, strengthening ETH relative to BTC.

Ethereum’s swelling base of dollar stablecoins has become a core driver of on-chain liquidity, fee flows, and collateral usage. That plumbing increasingly informs how investors interpret the ETH/BTC ratio and its regime shifts.

The ratio tends to draw attention when fresh on-chain demand meets ETH’s supply mechanics, which can tighten available float. In that context, stablecoin balances seated on Ethereum take on outsized importance for relative performance.

When stablecoins are issued and actively used on Ethereum, they pull activity into DeFi and payments, raising gas consumption and liquidity provisioning. More on-chain transactions mean more ETH used as gas, and EIP-1559 can permanently remove a portion of that fee flow, tightening net supply.

According to Coinbase Institutional’s weekly market commentary, ETH’s relative strength versus BTC in prior phases has coincided with constrained free float from staking and protocol usage, which can amplify price impact when net demand rises. In practice, a larger on-chain dollar base can catalyze rotation toward utility-driven activity, reinforcing ETH’s bid when conditions align.

“Ethereum stablecoin supply tops $158B: Why ETH/BTC matters now,” said AMBCrypto, underscoring that a bigger stablecoin base can translate into higher on-chain engagement. The linkage is not deterministic, but liquidity parked in tokenized dollars is often redeployed first into BTC and then into ETH as market breadth expands.

What $158B stablecoin supply on Ethereum actually measures

The headline figure typically refers to the aggregate circulating supply of major dollar stablecoins resident on Ethereum mainnet addresses. Unless stated, it does not consolidate balances on rival base layers or treat Layer 2 balances separately from their mainnet bridges, so definitions matter for comparability.

Chain-by-chain context is essential. As reported by MarketWatch, prior industry snapshots have shown Ethereum hosting more than half of the stablecoin market by value, while other networks like Tron carry substantial USDT activity. “Dominance” can reflect where balances sit, not necessarily where transactions occur, and methodologies differ across data providers.

Point-in-time readings also vary with issuance, redemptions, and bridge movements. Different dashboards can show discrepancies depending on whether contract-level exclusions, custodian wallets, or wrapped representations are netted out.

Transmission: stablecoin growth to gas, ETH burn, staking constraints

Growth in on-chain stablecoin balances often precedes heavier use of DEXs, lending markets, and payments, lifting transaction counts and fee throughput. Under EIP-1559, higher base fees can increase ETH burned, lowering net issuance and, at times, turning supply negative during peak activity.

At the same time, validator staking removes a portion of ETH from immediate circulation and can limit responsive sell-side depth. When demand from stablecoin-driven activity rises into that structure, the marginal price effect can be more pronounced, which is why ETH/BTC is closely watched during liquidity expansions.

There are caveats. Stablecoin policy, issuer risks, and gas spikes that push activity to Layer 2s can alter how much fee flow accumulates on mainnet. Shifts in exchange-liquidity conditions or macro drivers can also interrupt otherwise supportive on-chain dynamics for ETH.

At the time of this writing, Ethereum (ETH) trades near $1,951.83 with very high volatility and bearish short-term sentiment in the supplied market data context. This situational backdrop is descriptive only and may change without notice.