Visa Dethroned: Stablecoins Settle $27.6 Trillion — Ethereum’s Big Win?

Despite what seemed like a dismal quarter for cryptocurrencies in terms of prices, the first three months of 2025 have quietly marked one of the most important turning points in the digital asset world.

According to Bitwise Investment’s new report, titled “Crypto Market Review #Q1.25,” the crypto industry just experienced what they call “The Best Worst Quarter in Crypto’s History.”

Ethereum may be down 45% this quarter, but its underlying infrastructure is powering one of the most explosive trends in the financial world, which is the rise of stablecoins.

In Q1 alone, stablecoins settled a staggering $27.6 trillion on-chain, quietly surpassing Visa’s 2023 settlement volume of $12 trillion more than twice over.

With their assets under management growing 13.5% quarter-over-quarter to reach $218 billion, stablecoins have proven their product-market fit.

Ethereum is at the heart of this revolution. Even with median fees hovering around $0.66 per transaction, Ethereum’s throughput was bolstered by cheap and scalable rollups such as Base, Arbitrum, and Optimism, whose fees were often measured in fractions of a cent.

With landmark stablecoin legislation expected by July 2025 and traditional financial institutions lining up to support stablecoins at scale, the so-called “Stablecoin Summer” may just be beginning.

From Crisis to Catalyst: Regulation, Institutional Moves, and a National Crypto Pivot

Price action may have misled casual observers, but institutional and regulatory dynamics in Q1 2025 indicated a dramatic repositioning of the crypto narrative.

The Bitwise report indicates that the quarter commenced with the inauguration of the first overtly pro-crypto U.S. president, who promptly signed an executive order declaring digital assets a national priority.

This led to a cascade of events, including the establishment of a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, the repeal of restrictive guidance such as SAB 121, and the dismissal of the SEC’s major lawsuits against crypto firms.

In tandem, banks were given the green light to custody digital assets, reversing the chokehold once known as Operation Choke Point 2.0.

These regulatory breakthroughs laid the groundwork for capital to flow back into the crypto ecosystem.

Perhaps most significantly, the Financial Accounting Standards Board revised its treatment of digital assets, providing corporations with clearer accounting clarity on holding bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

Inspired by MicroStrategy, even GameStop raised $1.5 billion to purchase Bitcoin, and Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund committed $437 million to BTC, marking a notable increase in global institutional interest in cryptocurrency.

At the same time, the fundamentals of stablecoins experienced a surge. Beyond the $27.6 trillion settled, stablecoins saw massive institutional alignment as expectations of U.S. legislative clarity grew.

Ethereum fundamentals, too, remained robust, with Ethereum’s transaction activity and layer-2 growth surging, as protocols like Base, Arbitrum, and Optimism logged explosive increases in both users and activity.

Developer activity remained strongest on Ethereum, and though Solana temporarily surpassed Ethereum in revenue, Ethereum’s dominance in infrastructure and DeFi remained intact.

The data suggest that while crypto investors suffered paper losses in Q1, the building blocks for a much stronger second half of 2025 are already in place.

Regulatory clarity, national alignment, and stablecoin integration may have a greater impact on reshaping the industry’s long-term trajectory than any price rally.

Ethereum’s Quiet Triumph: The Infrastructure Behind Trillions

Ethereum, often dismissed for high fees or slow throughput, has emerged as the backbone of a new global financial system.

Not only is it the primary settlement layer for stablecoins, but its layer-2 networks are handling a growing share of global crypto transactions at lightning-fast speeds and rock-bottom costs.

According to Bitwise, Ethereum’s average developer count remains the highest in the industry.

The blockchain’s vibrant ecosystem also hosts several of the top DeFi protocols by revenue, including Uniswap ($1.03 billion), Lido ($972.1 million), and others, all of which build on or integrate with Ethereum or its scaling layers.

Transaction counts on Base, Arbitrum, and Optimism are climbing, even as Ethereum L1 remains the secure anchor for trustless computation.

As stablecoins gain mainstream adoption and global regulatory winds shift in favor, Ethereum’s infrastructure is poised to become even more central to the industry.

Already, it supports the largest share of the $2.5 trillion cryptocurrency economy, with Ethereum itself commanding a market capitalization of $217.78 billion.

It may be tempting to measure success by token price alone, but Bitwise’s report shows that the foundations of crypto are strengthening, even as markets fluctuate.

In the battle for global payment rails, Visa may have just lost round one, but it is gearing up for its stablecoin launch this year.

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