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Institutions are starved for stablecoin exposure, it seems. Circle’s IPO was reportedly oversubscribed by 25x, the stablecoin-specific Plasma chain saw its $500m token sale on Monday sell out in minutes, and major French bank Société Générale announced its dollar-backed stablecoin yesterday.

Welcome to stablecoin summer, I guess.

— Donovan

Permissionless IV is hitting Brooklyn on June 24-26. Tix are $499 — but refer 5 friends to the 0xResearch newsletter and score a free Permissionless ticket. Scroll down to grab your code.

ETH volumes rise as price breaks out:

Spot trading volumes for ETH across major exchanges surged on June 10, including on Binance and Coinbase. It marked the first meaningful uptick since ETH’s run-up in early May. As the chart shows, ETH accounted for 28.7% of total spot volume on Binance — narrowly edging out BTC at 27.8%.

The rise in ETH volumes comes as its price broke above the $2,700 level — decisively exiting a multi-week consolidation range. However, despite this momentum, ETH/BTC has yet to confirm a breakout. ETH is currently trading at 0.0258 BTC, just shy of the 0.026 resistance level last touched on May 13-14.

The renewed interest in ETH trading may signal market anticipation of further upside, but the lack of confirmation in the ETH/BTC ratio suggests caution. Traders may be watching for a decisive move above 0.026 before calling it a true ETH-led rotation.

— Macauley Peterson

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What does stablecoin summer look like?

In the wake of Circle’s IPO and Plasma’s token sale, stablecoins are undisputedly in vogue.

Meanwhile, the US Senate is going into a final vote on the landmark stablecoin bill, dubbed GENIUS Act, this week.

What does the stablecoin landscape look like today?

First, total stablecoin supply remains up and to the right — $249b in the last week. USDT and USDC represent the lion’s share of stablecoins, about 88% ($218b) of the entire stablecoin market put together.

Okay, stablecoin supply is growing, but how are they being used?

B2B use cases drive the largest share of stablecoin usage today.

B2B cross-border payments tracked at nearly $3b in February 2025 alone, compared to $1.1b for card-based spending, $1.5b in peer-to-peer payments, or $275m in B2C payments across the same time period.

18% of small and medium US businesses “[that] are aware of cryptocurrency” use stablecoins for their business needs in 2025 — up from 8% in 2024, according to Coinbase’s State of Crypto 2025 report.

The chains facilitating the most stablecoin transfers? Ethereum, Base and Tron. 

In May, Ethereum saw $1.2t in volumes (29%), while Base had $1t (26%) and Tron $687b (17%). Total stablecoin volumes in May came up to $4t.

Should the GENIUS Act come to pass, which players stand to gain the most?

If the GENIUS Act requires stablecoins to be backed by US dollars or Treasury bills, the answer is probably: TradFi regulated issuers such as Circle, traditional Fintech companies like PayPal, and banks and money market funds, Blockworks Research analyst Luke Leasure told me.

Decentralized stablecoins like Ethena’s USDe or Sky’s (previously Maker) USDS are not entirely backed by cash equivalents, so would not be compliant with GENIUS (unless registered in the US).

Yet, there are still downstream positive effects for DeFi from a burst in stablecoin growth.

In particular, money markets like Aave and Pendle stand to gain.

On Aave v3 alone (across all chains), stablecoins make up about $10.2b in TVL.

What about Pendle?

Though Pendle is technically a “yield trading” app, it has cemented itself as a de facto go-to-market platform for all yield-bearing assets, particularly stablecoins.

High risk appetite users onchain don’t just want to stake and earn an underlying T-bill yield, they want to speculate on points.

A snapshot of Pendle’s $5.3b in TVL today demonstrates the business’s effectiveness in capturing the downstream growth of new yield-bearing stablecoin launches. About ~61% of it comprises Ethena’s USDe and eUSDe (a restaking token), Sky’s USDS and OpenEden’s USDO.

A recent report from Spartan Group and Modular Capital found that Pendle has captured approximately 30% of the whole $11b yield-bearing stablecoin market — about 1.3% of total stablecoin supply.

— Donovan Choy

Polygon sunsets zkEVM, tightens focus on POL value accrual

Polygon is undergoing a strategic reset. With Sandeep Nailwal formally taking the reins as CEO of the Polygon Foundation, the network has entered a new era of founder-led execution, which it says is aimed squarely at delivering value to POL stakers. The shift follows a period of leadership turnover, including the recent departure of co-founder Mihailo Bjelic, and marks a move away from the diffuse consensus structure that previously guided the foundation.

Among the clearest signals of this pivot is the decision to sunset Polygon zkEVM, a product that failed to meet adoption expectations and fell behind newer modular and OP stack-aligned architectures. The zkEVM mainnet beta will remain live through 2026 to ensure user exits, but development has already ceased. The foundation cited architectural hurdles, limited developer traction and misalignment with user needs as reasons for winding it down.

In its place, Polygon is doubling down on newer initiatives with clearer product market-fit, including Katana, a DeFi-optimized chain incubated through the Agglayer Breakout Program. As Agglayer nears its full trustless launch and Polygon PoS transitions into a GigaGAS chain, the network is consolidating around a scalable, high-throughput vision — one designed to reward POL stakers through aligned incentives and growing ecosystem utility.

— Macauley Peterson

From token design and modular infra to ZK systems and economic coordination — this is where the best builders on the planet will gather. 

Names like Peter Todd, Casey Caruso, and Jeremy Rubin are already on the agenda. If you’re tracking where the space is actually going, this is the room.

📅 June 24-26 | Brooklyn