Circle Internet Group and Binance have expanded their strategic partnership through a new five-year commercial agreement and a $100 million equity investment by Binance in Circle.
The deal underscores Circle’s strategy of working closely with major crypto exchanges to expand the use of USDC, the world’s second-largest stablecoin by market capitalisation. USDC had about $75 billion in circulation around the time of the announcement.
Circle already has a close commercial relationship with Coinbase Global, under which Coinbase receives a share of the interest income generated from USDC held on its platform.
The companies did not disclose additional financial terms of the five-year commercial agreement.
“Circle has earned its place as one of the most credible issuers in the world, spanning USDC, Arc and the infrastructure reshaping how value moves across borders. Our $100 million investment and five-year commitment represent long-duration conviction,” said Richard Teng, co-CEO of Binance.
“We are helping to build a more inclusive, transparent and compliant digital economy. A stable, trusted digital dollar should not be a privilege — it should be available to anyone with a phone. That’s the future this partnership is designed to deliver.”
“Binance has built one of the largest and most dynamic platforms in the world for using digital currency, creating the internet’s largest financial super app, and becoming the most widely used wallets in the world for dollar stablecoins,” said Jeremy Allaire, co-founder, chairman and CEO of Circle.
“Together, we see incredible opportunities to leverage USDC to expand dollar access, support savings and investment with innovative digital asset products, and reach people and businesses throughout global emerging markets.”
USDC expands beyond crypto trading
The partnership comes as USDC use expands across payments, institutional finance and other financial applications. Circle received final approval from the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency in July to establish Circle National Trust, a national trust bank focused initially on digital-asset custody.
In July, Marex said its clients could use USDC as initial-margin collateral for certain regulated derivatives transactions, with Coinbase providing custody, conversion, settlement and reporting infrastructure.
Separately, on September 17, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission issued a temporary, conditional “Innovation Exemption” allowing certain tokenized securities venues to trade tokenized NMS stocks using permissioned automated market makers and liquidity pools. The exemption is set to expire after five years and includes conditions around investor rights, trading limits, transparency and issuer notification.
(With inputs from Bloomberg)
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