STABLESAFE WEEKLY2026-09-12 - 2026-09-19
Arc Adds Aave V4 as Medium-Risk Yield Reclaims 12 bps
7,808 pools | Median APY 1.36% | Avg 3.7%
$33.3B
LOW-RISK TVL
3.6%
LOW-RISK AVG APY
3.7%
MED-RISK AVG APY
TVL BY RISK TIER
Low: $33.3B (150 pools, 3.6%)Med: $25.7B (2833 pools, 3.7%)High: $1.0B (2737 pools, 6.9%)
WEEK OVER WEEK
Total TVL
$60.0B-$599.1M
prev: $60.6B
Median APY
1.36%-0.00pp
prev: 1.36%
Pool Count
7,808+164
prev: 7,644
Low-Risk APY
3.57%-0.23pp
prev: 3.80%

4 THINGS TO KNOW
Medium-risk yield reclaims a 12.19677-basis-point premium
Medium-risk: 3.695820% across $25,678,737,491; low-risk: 3.573853% across $33,316,960,019; spread: 12.19677 bps.
Arc gives Aave V4 a new institutional stablecoin lane
Circle: Arc mainnet launched September 16; Aave governance: approximately $709M V4 deposits and approximately $163M proposed additional cap capacity.
USD AI SUSDAI on Arbitrum: 6.93000% APY at $493.7M TVL
Usd Ai / SUSDAI / Arbitrum: 6.93000% APY, $493,652,562 TVL, risk score 23, one audit.
RWA reference rows dominate the new-pool detector
Examples include USYC at $2,463,806,962, BUIDL rows at $993,183,967 and $967,304,624, and USDY at $1,183,833,943.

CHAIN BREAKDOWN

These are screened positive-yield rows (0 < APY <= 50%) grouped by mapped chain. The raw feed also contains very large zero-yield or extreme outlier rows and unnamed chain IDs, which are omitted; no dedicated TVL-flow history is available, so trends describe composition rather than verified inflows.

POOLS
AVG APY
TVL
Ethereum
2299
3.8%
$36.2B
Base
590
1.9%
$7.4B
Arbitrum
341
5.7%
$2.9B
Solana
850
3.5%
$2.8B
Aptos
65
3.4%
$1.3B
Avalanche
131
4.5%
$941.1M

STABLECOIN YIELDS (AVG APY)
USDC
3.0%
$19.2B
USDS
3.8%
$7.3B
USDT
2.6%
$5.3B
PYUSD
2.9%
$3.5B
BUIDL
3.6%
$3.1B
SUSD
5.1%
$2.5B
USYC
3.2%
$2.5B
USDY
3.6%
$2.2B
Avg APY can be skewed by outliers. TVL on right.

TOP RISK-ADJUSTED PICKS
150 pools | $33.3B TVL | 3.6% avg APY
Ethena Usde SUSDE
Ethereum | The $1.328B row combines deep tracked liquidity with the lowest score in this low-risk set, while synthetic-asset exposure remains material.
4.7%
R:12
Maple USDT
Ethereum | Maple offers a low-score, large-TVL credit-market reference, but underwriting and issuer risks differ from money-market lending.
4.7%
R:21
Usd Ai SUSDAI
Arbitrum | The 6.93000% rate is supported by $493.7M of tracked TVL, but its strategy-specific premium may be less durable than the low-risk average.
6.9%
R:23
Dolomite USD1
Ethereum | A 7.95922% rate on $97.96M with two audits is high for the low-score tier. USD1 issuer and liquidity concentration remain important risks, and the smaller TVL makes this less of a market-wide reference than Maple or Ethena.
8.0%
R:13 | $98.0M


THIS WEEK IN STABLECOINS
Circle
Circle launches Arc public mainnet for stablecoin-native finance
Circle announced the public mainnet launch of Arc on September 16, describing it as an open Layer 1 built for financial markets, real-time money movement, and stablecoin-native applications. The launch included native USDC integration, dollar-denominated gas, sub-second finality, and more than 100 institutional and ecosystem builders.
A new USDC-native venue can change where stablecoin liquidity, lending, and tokenized-asset yield appear, although the current StableSafe feed does not yet show Arc pools.
Aave Governance
Aave V4 activation expands its institutional and Arc rollout
Aave governance reported on September 16 that V4 deposits across five hubs and two chains had reached approximately $709M. The update said the Arc instance reached its initial USDC caps within hours and proposed roughly $163M of additional capacity across Ethereum, Avalanche, and Arc.
Fast cap utilization is an early demand signal for new stablecoin lending venues and a reason to watch whether future yield supply on Arc remains organic after launch incentives.
DeFiLlama
Stablecoin market cap holds near $304.4B with USDT at 60.22%
DeFiLlama's live stablecoin dashboard showed approximately $304.394B of total stablecoin market capitalization, a 0.23% seven-day decline, and USDT dominance of 60.22% at research time. USDC remained the second-largest asset by market capitalization on the dashboard.
A broadly stable global dollar float provides the liquidity backdrop for competition between established lending, RWA, structured, and new chain venues.
OUTLOOK
Stablecoin yield is entering a selective-expansion phase rather than a broad repricing. The screened market averages 3.683196%, with medium risk only 12.19677 basis points above low risk, while high-risk structured and LP pools lift to 6.897601% on just $1,032,478,507. That narrow core spread suggests safer capital is still competing efficiently; the durable premium remains concentrated in maturity-sensitive or incentive-heavy venues. Circle's Arc launch and Aave V4's early Arc and Ethereum traction could widen the opportunity set if new liquidity survives the initial incentive period. Over the next one to two weeks, watch whether Arc demand produces repeatable USDC utilization, whether Pendle's 12.323295% protocol average persists without an accompanying TVL history, and whether RWA coverage rows translate into genuinely new deployments. Treat the raw 22.729113% feed average as unusable until the outlier rows are resolved.
MEDIUMArc and Aave V4 USDC utilization
MEDIUMMedium-versus-low risk spread
MEDIUMPendle structured-yield concentration
LOWRWA coverage versus genuine deployments