Circle Paid $819 Million to USDC Partners and Transaction Costs in First Half of 2026

Update 21:17 UTC: The report also put a dollar figure on Binance's September stake, describing the five-year commercial agreement as a roughly $100 million investment in Circle, alongside Coinbase's record average of $20 billion in USDC held in its products during the second quarter, up 44% year over year.

59 Cents of Every Dollar

Circle, the issuer of USDC, published a detailed accounting of how the stablecoin's revenue is divided on Friday, October 16, disclosing that roughly $819 million of its approximately $1.4 billion in first-half 2026 revenue went to distribution partners and transaction costs. The company released the figures in a post on its official X account, which links to an essay signed by Chief Commercial Officer Kash Razzaghi under the title “The Economics of USDC and Why Our Partners Win.” Per dollar of revenue, the disclosure works out to about 59 cents leaving Circle for partners and transaction costs, a figure the company says merges distribution fees with transaction costs without breaking out the share of each. Roughly $473 million, about 34 cents per dollar, was reinvested in licenses, banking relationships, settlement liquidity, compliance and blockchain integrations, leaving net profit of about 7 cents. More than 150 partners take part in the economic distribution of USDC, according to the company, which frames the disclosure as proof that partners, not the issuer, capture most of the value. Circle presented the numbers without any adjusted or restated label, so the first-half print stands as reported. The essay answers newer issuers who argue they can build a more useful stablecoin, that incumbents keep too much reserve yield and that redemption is expensive. Circle names no rival, but the post landed roughly two weeks after Stripe's Bridge unit rolled out Open Standard's OUSD, a dollar token built around revenue sharing with partners. Circle's own figures put first-half on-chain settlement above $36 trillion, minting and redemption above $315 billion, and USDC's share of global stablecoin trading volume near 77% in June, with no methodology disclosed for those counts. Market data shows the USDC price holding its $1 peg, with supply near 72.5 billion tokens and a market cap of about $72.53 billion.

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Circle describes two channels through which partners earn from USDC. Platforms that hold USDC balances for customers and grow them receive a proportional share of reserve yield, while builders on the Circle Payments Network, the firm's cross-institution settlement rail, and qualified platform clients get free, near-instant redemption. Reserve yield is the core of the business: Circle earns on the reserves backing each token in circulation and passes much of that income back to whoever drives balances onto partner platforms. The largest beneficiary, however, is a single exchange. Coinbase's second-quarter earnings deck, filed with the SEC, reports an average $20 billion of USDC held in Coinbase products during Q2, a record above 30% of circulating supply at quarter end, and states that Coinbase has captured roughly half of USDC economics over the past year. That makes the filing the clearest public look at where USDC's economics actually settle. The 150-partner framing therefore concentrates on one participant to an unusual degree. A separate filing Circle made with the SEC shows Binance bought stock in September, subscribing for 1.24 million Class A shares at $80.84 each under a five-year commercial agreement that pays Binance monthly incentive fees tied to USDC holdings. On the redemption dispute at the center of the competitive pitch, Circle states that every customer can redeem through standard bank channels at no cost, with funds arriving within about two business days, while CPN payment flows and qualifying platform clients, including users of the Arc blockchain, Circle Mint and Circle Wallets, settle free and near-instant around the clock. The company says it redeemed $71.8 billion of USDC in the first quarter, about 90% of the supply then circulating, a turnover rate Circle offers as evidence that exit friction is not pricing customers out. OUSD, by contrast, advertises free one-to-one minting and burning on every integrated path.

The competitive backdrop behind the post now includes scale figures and market reaction. Stripe folded OUSD into its stablecoin stack on September 30, saying it carries no minting or burning fees and pays partner rewards on activity and balances. Circle's shares fell roughly 13% after the launch announcement, and CEO Jeremy Allaire downplayed the entry, saying Circle welcomed competition. Analysts split at the time: Dragonfly's Rob Hadick called OUSD a threat to Circle's business, while Clear Street's Owen Lau read the selloff as an overreaction, citing Paxos' consortium-backed USDG, which stalled near $3 billion in supply. OUSD currently holds about 1% of USDC's roughly $72.6 billion circulation.

The disclosure drew on a widening market context, per accompanying commentary in the essay and related analyst notes. USDC's share of global stablecoin trading volume stood near 77% in June, up 17 percentage points from about 60% a year earlier, and cumulative on-chain settlement has passed $36 trillion. Standard Chartered reported this week that average monthly stablecoin transfer volume approached $10 trillion this year, while William Blair wrote in last month's investor report that the broader digital asset market recovery could support Circle's stock into next year, citing regulatory clarity, growth in tokenized assets and business diversification. Circle is scheduled to report third-quarter results on November 4.

A company blog post by Chief Commercial Officer Kash Razzaghi, published October 16, put Circle's going-concern net profit at about 7.4% of revenue and reserve income for the first half of 2026. On that basis, the roughly $1.4 billion in first-half revenue left about $103 million after the $819 million paid to distribution partners and transaction costs and reinvestment spending. The post also restated that USDC traded more than $36 trillion on-chain over the half, framing the payout ratio as the cost of driving that settlement volume through partner channels rather than as an operating shortfall.

Circle said it pre-positions cash at partner banks worldwide to make near-instant redemption possible, and that this cash earns a lower yield than Treasury bills, a direct cost the company did not break out in its dollar-per-revenue breakdown. The report also put a dollar figure on Binance's September stake, describing the five-year commercial agreement as a roughly $100 million investment in Circle, alongside Coinbase's record average of $20 billion in USDC held in its products during the second quarter, up 44% year over year. Circle is set to report third-quarter results on November 4.

A 150-Partner Ledger With One Dominant Payer

Concentration is the number that cuts against the 59-cent message. A ledger framed as more than 150 partners sharing the economics has, by Coinbase's own filing, a single partner collecting about half, so Circle (CRCL) is defending a model whose biggest cost line is also its biggest dependency. The timing sharpens the tension: OUSD launched with partner yield as its core pitch, Binance has locked in monthly incentive fees, and the contest over who monetizes PayFi flows across the USDC ecosystem is now explicit. Circle retains strengths its challengers lack, including the EU's first significant e-money token classification from November 12 and USDC card payments that topped $439 million in September. None of the figures is labelled adjusted, and partner payouts sit in one line with transaction costs; the print becomes comparable with a later period only if Circle keeps that combined definition and starts separating the two.