Stablecoins Are Building Their Own Chains: From Dependence to Settlement Sovereignty

LeeMaimai

/Oct 17, 2025

Key Takeaways

• Stablecoins are moving towards owning their own settlement layers for better control and efficiency.

• Appchains and app-rollups provide tailored solutions for stablecoin operations, enhancing performance and compliance.

• Users will benefit from paying fees in stable assets, simplifying transactions and improving user experience.

• The emergence of native mint/burn bridging enhances interoperability and reduces reliance on wrapped assets.

• Developers must adapt to new governance and MEV policies as stablecoin ecosystems evolve.

Stablecoins began as guests on general‑purpose blockchains. They issued tokens, rode existing consensus, paid the prevailing gas, and lived with host‑chain congestion and policy choices. That dependency is changing. A new wave of “stablecoin-native” chains and rollups is emerging, where the currency that dominates transfers also governs fees, captures sequencing revenue, and controls its own bridging and compliance posture. In a word: settlement sovereignty.

This article explains why this shift is happening, how teams are building it, the trade-offs for users and developers, and what it means for self‑custody.

Why stablecoins want their own settlement layer

Cost and performance control. General‑purpose chains price blockspace for the broadest market. Purpose-built appchains/rollups can optimize for payment throughput, short finality, predictable fees, and smooth peak load—without competing with NFT mints or on‑chain gaming.
Revenue capture and sustainability. Sequencing fees and MEV are crucial revenue sources. Owning the sequencer or chain lets issuers recycle fee revenue into incentives, security, user rebates, or even pass through savings to merchants. For background on MEV’s role in protocol economics, see research by Flashbots on builder–proposer dynamics and MEV supply chains, which helps explain why control over ordering matters for payment rails (reference: writings by Flashbots at the end of that section’s paragraph).
Compliance and risk management. Payment tokens run into regulatory obligations around KYC/AML, consumer protection, and reserves. Operating on a dedicated execution layer allows calibrated controls, from allow‑listed endpoints to granular off‑chain attestations. The EU’s MiCA framework, under which Circle became an authorized e‑money issuer in 2024, is catalyzing compliant infrastructure choices for EURC and USDC in Europe (see Circle’s announcement of its French EMI license).
Interoperability by design. Cross‑chain fragmentation has made stablecoin UX brittle. Native mint/burn bridging beats wrapped assets. Purpose-built chains often integrate mint/burn bridges at the protocol edge instead of relying solely on third‑party bridges. Circle’s Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol (CCTP) is a notable move in this direction, standardizing canonical USDC mobility across supported networks (see Circle’s CCTP overview).
Gas in the unit people actually spend. Letting users pay network fees in the same stable asset they send (rather than in gas tokens like ETH) eliminates one of crypto’s biggest UX hurdles for payments. ERC‑4337 and related account abstraction patterns also enable sponsored or meta‑transactions that further hide gas complexity from end users (see EIP‑4337).

References:

Flashbots research on MEV and block building can be explored via the Flashbots writings hub.
Circle’s EMI license in France and MiCA alignment: Circle newsroom update.
Circle’s Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol: developer documentation.
ERC‑4337 specification: Ethereum Improvement Proposal.

How they are building it: appchains and app‑rollups

Two architectures dominate:

Appchains. Sovereign L1s (often Cosmos SDK–based) with custom governance, fee logic, and native bridges via IBC. They provide maximum control at the cost of bootstrapping security and validator sets. Cosmos offers mature primitives for this model (see Cosmos SDK docs).
App‑rollups. L2s/L3s that inherit security from a base layer (e.g., Ethereum) while customizing the execution environment, tokens, and fee policies. Teams can launch with:
- OP Stack for optimistic rollups with a modular stack and strong ecosystem tooling.
- Arbitrum Orbit for permissioned L2/L3 deployments and custom gas assets.
- zk‑based frameworks such as zkSync’s Hyperchains for validity proofs and fast finality.

Shared sequencers (e.g., Espresso’s in‑development shared sequencing layer) promise cross‑rollup atomicity and fair ordering while letting each app‑rollup retain sovereignty over its protocol logic (see Espresso Systems docs).

The 2024 Ethereum Dencun upgrade reduced L2 data availability costs with blobs (EIP‑4844), materially improving the economics of app‑rollups that target high‑volume payment flows (see the Ethereum Foundation’s Dencun post).

References:

OP Stack documentation.
Arbitrum developer docs and Orbit resources.
zkSync Hyperchains documentation.
Espresso Systems shared sequencer docs.
Ethereum Foundation on Dencun/EIP‑4844.

Live and emerging examples

USDC issuance on a dedicated Cosmos appchain via Noble. Circle partnered with Noble to provide native USDC to the Cosmos IBC ecosystem, avoiding wrapped liquidity and enabling direct mint/burn flows where IBC reaches. This design demonstrates a stablecoin-specific chain supporting an entire interchain economy (see Circle’s announcement on USDC in Cosmos via Noble and Noble’s public resources).
Fraxchain for the FRAX ecosystem. Frax Finance has been developing an Ethereum‑aligned rollup tailored to its products (FRAX, frxETH, and growing RWA initiatives), designed to route ecosystem flows through a chain where fees and incentives compound back into the protocol. Public materials outline an L2 architecture focused on stablecoin liquidity and payments; check Frax’s documentation hub for the latest technical overview.
Aave Network with GHO at the core. Aave Companies proposed launching an L2 where its over‑collateralized stable asset, GHO, would play a central role in payments and protocol incentives. The stated goal is to improve UX for borrowing/lending while making GHO the unit of account for network fees and value flows. Community discussions and media coverage in late 2024 highlighted the intent to use a modular rollup stack and GHO‑centric gas policies (see Aave governance forum and reporting on the proposal).
MakerDAO’s NewChain concept for DAI governance and backend. As part of Endgame, Maker considered a “NewChain” based on the Solana codebase to harden governance and risk systems, decoupling critical control planes from general‑purpose L1 churn. While not a retail payments chain per se, it signals the same trend toward vertical control in a stablecoin‑anchored ecosystem (see coverage of the NewChain proposal).
Historic precedent: Terra. Whatever one thinks of design choices that led to UST’s collapse, Terra was a clear case of a stablecoin‑native chain attempting full‑stack sovereignty over issuance, fee logic, and settlement. It remains a case study in the technical and economic risks of reflexive stablecoin designs (see CoinDesk’s explainer on the Terra collapse).
Expansion without sovereignty: PYUSD. PayPal and Paxos expanded PYUSD to Solana in 2024 to capture higher throughput and lower fees, underscoring that even without launching a new chain, stablecoin issuers seek payment‑optimized environments. It’s a stepping stone toward the same end: control over UX and performance (see PayPal’s newsroom note).

References:

USDC on Cosmos via Noble: Circle blog.
Fraxchain: Frax documentation portal.
Aave Network and GHO: Aave governance forum and media coverage.
MakerDAO NewChain: industry coverage of Rune’s proposal.
Terra collapse background: CoinDesk learn resource.
PYUSD on Solana: PayPal newsroom.

What changes for users and developers

Fees may be denominated in the stable asset. End users won’t need a separate gas token. Developers should add fee abstractions and on‑ramp flows that fund wallets directly in the stable asset, plus support for sponsored transactions when appropriate.
Native bridging replaces wrapped assets. Expect more canonical mint/burn flows integrated into wallets and dapps. Developers should align with issuer‑run bridges (e.g., CCTP for USDC) and expose clear provenance for inbound/outbound transfers.
Compliance surfaces move closer to the protocol edge. Wallets and dapps may need to integrate attestations, allow‑lists, or jurisdictional toggles. Issuers will emphasize auditable flows and reporting pipelines to meet MiCA‑style obligations.
Governance and MEV policies become a product feature. Merchant acceptance, refund guarantees, and predictable confirmation windows depend on sequencing policy. Builders should evaluate whether chains use shared sequencers, fair ordering, or inclusion guarantees, and document these guarantees for integrators.
Risk model changes. Appchains concentrate some risks in a single issuer/operator, even when security is inherited from a base L1. Due diligence should cover upgrade keys, kill‑switches, censorship redress paths, and transparency on reserve attestations.

Technical checklist for teams considering a stablecoin‑native chain

Execution: appchain vs app‑rollup; optimistic vs zk proofs; gas‑in‑stable configuration.
DA strategy and costs: on‑L1 blobs (EIP‑4844) vs external DA layers; fee targeting and cost forecasting.
Sequencing: centralized, decentralized, or shared; MEV policy and revenue recycling.
Bridging: native mint/burn, integration with standards like CCTP, exit guarantees.
Compliance: KYC/KYB endpoints, travel rule support, sanction response playbooks, MiCA/EMI posture.
Developer UX: RPC reliability, indexers, SDKs, and testnets; production‑grade monitoring and incident response.

Security and self‑custody in a multi‑chain stablecoin world

As stable assets spread across appchains and app‑rollups, user safety hinges on correct network selection, key isolation, and clear provenance of “native” vs “wrapped” balances.

Practical tips:

Verify the issuance domain. Prefer native versions minted by the issuer or its designated chain (e.g., USDC via CCTP or Noble) over third‑party wrapped variants when feasible.
Treat bridges as counterparties. Read the economic guarantees and emergency procedures of the bridge you rely on. Favor mint/burn designs over escrow‑based bridges for settlement flows.
Use hardware‑backed signing. Keys that authorize transfers on multiple networks should never live in a hot environment. A hardware wallet with audited, open‑source firmware and wide multi‑chain coverage reduces attack surface and configuration errors.
Keep your stack update‑ready. New L2s/L3s and appchains will keep launching. Ensure your wallet stack can add custom networks, handle EIP‑155 chain IDs safely, and verify contract addresses from issuer‑controlled sources.

If you self‑custody stable assets across many networks, OneKey can be a practical choice: it supports major EVM L2s, Cosmos appchains, Solana, and more; offers transparent, open‑source software; and adds features like offline signing and passphrase protection that are especially valuable when interacting with newly launched app‑rollups. In short, when settlement moves, your keys should stay put.

Outlook

The arc is clear: payment tokens are moving from renting blockspace to owning settlement. With better fee economics after Dencun, maturing rollup stacks (OP Stack, Orbit, zk frameworks), and regulator‑driven clarity in key markets, stablecoin‑native chains can deliver faster, cheaper, and more predictable payment rails—while bearing new responsibilities around neutrality, compliance, and resilience.

For users and builders, the north star is the same: preserve self‑custody, minimize trust in intermediaries, and make the provenance of value movement obvious. If the industry gets those right, settlement sovereignty won’t just be a technical milestone—it will be a UX upgrade for everyone.

References and further reading: