The Day and Night Difference in USDC Usage Across EVM Chains

The Five USDC Usage Profiles

In this study, we examined USDC usage across the five most popular EVM chains: Ethereum, BNB Chain, Base, Arbitrum, and Polygon — to understand how USDC is deployed depending on where it is held. Using on-chain transfer data from Circle's deployed contracts and address classifications from the Dune Spellbook label set, we find that the chain a user is on is a stronger predictor of how their USDC is deployed than any other single factor. The differences are stark: from exchange-dominated custodial chains to DeFi-native networks where USDC functions as productive capital, each chain tells a distinctly different story.

Author’s Note

Of each usage category where the absolute USDC figures are quoted, those figures are lower than its true values due to a majority of USDC usage being unclassified. More on this will be discussed in our methodology section.

Ethereum

Ethereum is the largest USDC chain by a wide margin, holding $51.3B in total supply as of June 25, 2026. Among classified addresses, centralized exchanges dominate at 68.0% ($4.05B), with major platforms including Binance, Coinbase, OKX, and Kraken accounting for the bulk of that share. Custody services add a further 12.7% ($767M), reflecting Ethereum's role as the default settlement layer for institutional holders and OTC desks. Regarding Ethereum’s on-chain DeFi usage, Lending is recorded at 6.6% ($424M) and DEX liquidity at 6.0% ($353M). This showcases that DeFi on Ethereum is present but secondary, as much of Ethereum's DeFi activity has migrated to cheaper L2 networks. Ethereum's USDC profile is best understood as an institutional and exchange reserve chain rather than an active DeFi ecosystem.

BNB Chain

BNB Chain shows the highest concentration of centralized exchange USDC usage at 88.1% ($791M). This is structurally driven: BNB Chain's USDC functions primarily as settlement and withdrawal infrastructure for Binance and other centralized exchanges. DeFi usage appears minimal in relative terms due to the dominance of the CEX share, but BNB Chain is in practice a prominent DeFi ecosystem — its 2.9% ($46.9M) DEX allocation and 1.5% ($23.1M) lending share is misrepresented by the fact that BNB Chain features higher USDT ($9.1B TVL) adoption rates as compared to USDC ($1.6B TVL). This contrasts Base, which favors USDC more than USDT.

Base

Base stands out as the most DeFi-native USDC chain in this study. Lending protocols account for 49.0% ($225M) of classified supply — the highest of any chain — driven primarily by Aave V3 and Morpho, while DEX liquidity pools hold a further 36.0% ($139M). Together, lending and DEX usage account for 85.0% ($364M) of Base's classified USDC, with centralized exchanges accounting for just 13.0% ($72M). This profile reflects Base's user base: the chain attracted a disproportionately DeFi-literate cohort of early adopters, many of whom migrated from Ethereum mainnet to access lower-cost on-chain applications. On Base, USDC behaves as productive capital rather than a custodial reserve. One caveat worth noting: Base's strong preference for USDC over the other stablecoins may be partly amplified by Coinbase's close institutional ties with Circle, which could influence USDC distribution patterns on a chain Coinbase itself operates.

Arbitrum

Arbitrum presents the most diversified USDC profile of the five chains, with no single category exceeding 29% of classified supply. Lending leads at 28.8% ($62M), followed by centralized exchanges at 25.0% ($51M), DEX liquidity at 15.1% ($31M), custody services at 12.6% ($30M), and yield vaults at 11.0% ($25M). Perpetuals protocols — primarily GMX — contribute a further 3.9% ($9.5M), a category that barely registers on any other chain in this study. This balanced distribution reflects Arbitrum's maturity as a general-purpose DeFi L2, having developed deep infrastructure across the full stack: spot DEXes, lending markets, perpetual exchanges, and yield aggregators have all accumulated meaningful TVL. Arbitrum's USDC profile most closely resembles a diversified DeFi portfolio.

Polygon

Polygon's USDC profile is the most distinctive of the five chains, featuring a variety of USDC use cases. Centralized exchanges lead at 35.2% ($41M), but the most notable finding is the 24.8% ($27M) share held by casino and gambling platforms — the highest of any chain in this study and a category that barely appears elsewhere. This is almost entirely attributable to a single entity: Stake.com, one of the largest crypto gambling platforms globally, accounts for 99.72% of the casino classification ($26.91M out of $26.98M), holds USDC on Polygon as an operational settlement float. Payment processing adds a further 8.4% ($3M) — again the highest of any chain — reflecting Polygon's early positioning as a low-fee payments chain before the current L2 landscape matured.

On USDC Usage Classification

To categorize how USDC is held across each chain, we classify addresses using Dune Spellbook's labels.owner_addresses and labels.owner_details tables. Addresses that do not match any label are excluded from the chart. The nine classifications used in this study are:

• Centralized Exchanges: Hot wallets and deposit addresses belonging to centralized trading platforms such as Binance, Coinbase, OKX, and Kraken. USDC held here represents exchange-custodied user balances and operational float.

• Custody Services: Addresses belonging to institutional custodians and prime brokers such as Copper and BitGo. Distinct from exchange wallets, these hold USDC on behalf of institutional clients rather than retail users.

• Lending: Smart contracts belonging to on-chain lending protocols such as Aave, Compound, and Morpho, where USDC is deposited to earn yield or used as borrowing collateral.

• Decentralized Exchanges: Liquidity pool contracts on AMM-based DEXes such as Uniswap, Curve, and PancakeSwap, where USDC is paired against other assets to facilitate spot trading.

• Yield Vaults: Yield-aggregator and vault contracts such as Convex and Yearn that deploy USDC into underlying strategies to optimize returns, distinct from direct lending deposits.

• Casino: Addresses belonging to crypto gambling platforms. On Polygon, this classification is almost entirely attributable to Stake.com, which holds substantial USDC reserves on the network as an operational settlement float.

• PaymentFi: Addresses associated with payment processors and merchant settlement rails that use USDC for real-world payment flows.

• Other: Labelled addresses that do not fall into the above categories, including protocol treasuries, DAO multisigs, bridge contracts, perpetuals platforms, and privacy services.

• Unclassified: Externally-owned accounts and smart contract addresses with no matching label. This is the largest category on every chain and includes retail wallets, unlabelled institutional holders, and any address not covered by the Spellbook label set.

Chain, Category, Classification: A Methodology Note

We note a data limitation as shown in the chart above, a significant majority of USDC supply on every chain sits in unclassified externally-owned wallets — ranging from 83.1% on Polygon to 91.8% on Arbitrum.

However, because this classification bias is consistent across all five chains, the relative cross-chain comparison remains valid: the unclassified share is a systematic error term rather than a chain-specific one, and cancels out when comparing proportional distributions across chains. The labelled slice — while a minority of total supply — is representative enough for cross-chain comparison purposes, since the same labelling methodology and coverage gaps apply equally to every chain. All figures reflect a point-in-time snapshot as of June 25, 2026. Overall, this analysis reconstructs USDC balances by summing all Transfer events from Circle's deployed contracts on each chain, netting inflows against outflows per address to derive current holdings. While this study only examines USDC usage, its original intention was to approximate stablecoin behavior broadly, on the basis that deployment decisions — whether to hold in a CEX, deploy into lending, provide DEX liquidity, or use for payments — are largely instrument-agnostic across USDT, USDS, and USDC. However, in the interest of data precision and not wanting to speculate, we have decided not to assume similar usages across USDT and USDS.

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Related: Blockchain User Retention: Which Chains Keep Their Users?

This study is for illustrative and informational purposes only, and is not financial advice.

USDC Usage by Chain and Category (June 25, 2026)

Classified addresses only. Unclassified EOA wallets excluded. Figures rounded to one decimal place. Source: Dune Analytics / CoinGecko Research, June 25, 2026.