Circle Paid $819 Million to Partners in First Half of 2026

• Circle’s revenue for the first half of 2026 totaled $1.4 billion.
• The company allocated 59% to USDC partners.
• In addition, it spent $473 million on infrastructure.

Circle, the issuer of the USDC stablecoin, generated about $1.4 billion in revenue in the first half of 2026, of which $819 million, or 59%, it paid out to distribution partners and allocated to transaction costs. The company spent another $473 million on licenses, banking infrastructure, liquidity, compliance, and product development, while net profit came in at about 7% of revenue. 

Circle published these figures amid discussions about stablecoin revenue sharing, saying that investment in infrastructure is a prerequisite for their use in global payments.

Circle Shares Revenue From USDC

According to the company, in the first half of 2026, the volume of onchain USDC transactions exceeded $36 trillion. Over this period, Circle issued and redeemed more than $315 billion worth of stablecoins — an average of about $1.7 billion per day, including weekends and holidays.

In June, USDC accounted for roughly 77% of global stablecoin transaction volume, up from 60% a year earlier.

Circle claims that most of the economic benefit from USDC is already shared with partners that drive its distribution. In particular, platforms that attract and retain stablecoin balances receive a share of reserve revenue: the more USDC they bring in, the larger their share can be.

Circle’s largest and longest-standing partner is Coinbase. In its Q2 report, the exchange said the average amount of USDC held across its products reached a record $20 billion — up 44% year over year.

In addition, on September 16, Arc launched on mainnet, with BlackRock, Visa, and Mastercard among the validators.

In September, Binance also entered into a five-year commercial agreement with Circle and invested $100 million in the company. Overall, according to Circle’s estimates, more than 150 partners have an economic interest in the development of USDC. This network includes exchanges, wallets, neobanks, fintech companies, payment platforms, banks, and enterprises.

The company emphasizes that the funds remaining after partner payouts are mostly reinvested into infrastructure. In the first half of the year, about $473 million went toward these needs, or 34 cents of every dollar of revenue. Net profit was about 7 cents per dollar.

Free USDC Redemptions and Infrastructure Costs

Circle said that all of its customers have always been able to redeem USDC for free via standard banking rails, typically settling within two business days. The company now also offers free, near real-time redemptions 24/7 — provided customers use the Circle Payments Network (CPN) or relevant Circle Platform products.

As a reminder, the company announced the launch of the Circle Payments Network for stablecoin settlement in April 2025.

In Q1 2026, Circle redeemed $71.8 billion in USDC — a volume equivalent to about 90% of the stablecoin’s circulating supply at the time. In Q2, the combined issuance and redemption volume reached $170 billion, up 105% year over year.

According to the company, fast settlement requires substantial cash buffers at partner banks, available to transfer immediately after a redemption is confirmed on-chain. Maintaining that liquidity, including outside banks’ business hours, creates additional costs that Circle does not charge to customers using the relevant network services.

Circle also listed the infrastructure it has built over more than eight years: more than 55 licenses and registrations, including MiCA compliance; partnerships with more than 25 banks; reserves in a government money market fund managed by BlackRock, with custody at BNY and monthly attestations; compliance and sanctions screening programs across 185 countries; and native USDC deployments on more than 35 blockchains.

“A stablecoin is not a software product. It is monetary infrastructure, and it has to be financially sound,” Circle said, arguing for the need to reinvest part of its revenue into the reliability and accessibility of USDC.

The company noted that the stablecoin was launched in 2018 as a consortium project, and in 2023 Circle took full control of it and rebuilt the model, emphasizing the issuer’s ability to invest in infrastructure.

Earlier, we wrote that Circle launched USDC loans backed by bitcoin collateral in Circle Mint.

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