Ethereum reclaims DeFi market as bots drive $480B stablecoin volume

The Ethereum web is staging a comeback successful 2025 arsenic bot-driven enactment and stablecoin maturation propulsion the mainnet backmost into the halfway of decentralized concern (DeFi). 

On June 4, crypto trading level CEX.io reported that automated bots facilitated 4.84 cardinal stablecoin transfers connected Ethereum’s layer-1 blockchain successful May. The measurement reached $480 billion, its highest grounds to date. 

Illia Otychenko, the pb expert astatine crypto speech Cex.io, linked the enactment surge to little transaction fees successful the archetypal 4th of 2025, which helped reverse a multi-year inclination of liquidity and idiosyncratic migration to rival blockchains and Ethereum layer-2 networks. 

Because of this, the mainnet’s stablecoin marketplace capitalization grew by 11% successful 2025, taking marketplace stock distant from its layer-2 networks. While the mainnet recouped stablecoin marketplace share, the combined stablecoin marketplace connected L2s lone shrank by 1%.  

Ethereum stablecoin marketplace headdress year-to-date alteration wrong the Ethereum ecosystem. Source: Cex.io

Bots lend to marketplace ratio and stablecoin adoption

Bots, which received a batch of disapproval for arguable maximum extractable worth (MEV) strategies and sandwich attacks, are present being recognized for their relation successful improving liquidity and ratio connected Ethereum’s decentralized exchanges (DEXs). 

Cex.io said these bots pushed stablecoin swaps to the apical of Ethereum DEX categories for the archetypal time. In April, stablecoin swaps accounted for 37% of the full DEX trading measurement connected Ethereum and 32% successful May. 

The displacement successful trading behaviour wrong the Ethereum ecosystem signaled a broader absorption connected inferior and payment-driven usage cases. During the shift, Circle’s USDC (USDC) became the most-traded plus connected Ethereum. 

These changes bespeak that Ethereum is regaining marketplace stock and pushing DeFi toward much unchangeable and businesslike mechanisms. If Ethereum tin support a low-fee environment, the web is well-positioned to go a colony furniture for stablecoin, bots and DeFi infrastructure. 

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Analyst says stablecoin absorption is not conscionable a phase

Otychenko told Cointelegraph that Ethereum's increasing absorption connected stablecoins is not conscionable a marketplace signifier but a awesome for real-world adoption taking root. “Speculative tokens travel and go, but stablecoins instrumentality due to the fact that they lick existent problems,” helium said, pointing to rising request for fast, reliable, borderless payments successful emerging markets.

While utility-driven DeFi could cement Ethereum arsenic a stablecoin colony layer, the expert warned that sustaining the pb requires much than conscionable momentum; the web needs to code existing challenges similar liquidity fragmentation. 

“The web needs to lick outgo and liquidity fragmentation crossed layers,” Otychenko told Cointelegraph. “This isn’t conscionable a method issue. It’s what volition determine whether Ethereum leads oregon lags successful the adjacent signifier of adoption.”

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