A stablecoin breaks its peg.
Half a million holders run for the exits.
A stablecoin is a token designed to hold $1. When one drops to $0.97, everyone wants the same thing at the same time: inclusion, execution, and final settlement before the next leg down. Below is a simulation of that moment on four kinds of chains. Watch where single-metric designs start exposing hidden costs.
Simulation · T-0s · Peg holding
Ethereum
Decentralized · EVM · Slow
Sequential execution and a generic state DB cap throughput at ~15 TPS regardless of hardware.[4]
Fast Non-EVM L1
EVM route needs rebuild
Fast & cheap, but funneled
1
Official L1 exit · ~7 days
Day-to-day costs are cheap and fast, but high-certainty settlement and official exits still depend on the underlying chain’s timing.[9]
Monad
Everyone exits in under 1s
You’re out · <1s
Parallel EVM execution, a custom state DB, and pipelined consensus.[1] Each property holds without giving up another.
Each alternative solves a different part of the problem. The point is doing the whole job at once on the day waiting costs money. Full property breakdown in the matrix below.