Binance buys a $100m Circle stake in five-year USDC deal

Binance has bought $100 million of Circle Internet Group stock and signed a new five-year agreement to promote USDC, the dollar stablecoin Circle issues, the two companies announced on 22 September 2026. The money runs both ways: Binance now owns part of Circle, and Circle pays Binance a monthly fee to keep USDC in front of its users.

“Our $100 million investment and five-year commitment represent long-duration conviction,” said Richard Teng, Binance’s co-chief executive. Jeremy Allaire, Circle’s co-founder and chief executive, called Binance “the most widely used wallet in the world for dollar stablecoins”.

Binance paid 5% below Circle’s share price

Binance bought 1,237,011 shares of Circle’s Class A stock at $80.84 each on 17 September 2026, 5 per cent below the market price, according to Circle’s Form 8-K and release. The filing describes a price “reflecting a discount to the market price” before closing, and Circle’s shares closed at $85.09 on the day the deal closed, on Nasdaq’s record.

The lock-up is tight. Until it ends, Binance may not “sell, transfer, assign, pledge, hypothecate or otherwise dispose of” the shares, or hedge them with a swap or derivative, the filing says. It keeps full voting rights.

Circle pays Binance a monthly fee to promote USDC

Circle pays Binance “a monthly incentive fee representing a percentage of the amount of USDC held through the Modular Smart Contract Wallet infrastructure service”, its wallet service on the exchange, and Binance promotes USDC on its platform, under arrangements that run for five years from 17 September 2026. Either side can end them early “upon the occurrence of certain specified events”, the 8-K says, and they replace the deals the two companies signed in November 2024 and August 2025.

Circle’s earlier filings show what such fees look like. Under the November 2024 deal Circle paid Binance a one-off $60.25 million upfront, plus a monthly fee linked to short-term US interest rates on the USDC Binance held, according to Circle’s 2025 prospectus. Binance also agreed to keep 3 billion USDC, about $3 billion, in its own treasury, with the treasury fee paid only while it held at least 1.5 billion. The August 2025 deal ran for four years and paid “an annualized high double-digit percentage” of a rate set at a discount to three-month SOFR, a benchmark US interest rate.

Coinbase takes most of what Circle spends on distribution

Circle’s biggest distribution partner is still Coinbase, which cost Circle $324.6 million in the three months to 30 June 2026 and $655.3 million in the first half of the year, according to Circle’s quarterly report. Under their collaboration agreement Coinbase is paid on the USDC held on its platform and “also receives half of the remaining amount tied to broader ecosystem growth”.

Circle’s distribution and transaction costs across all its partners came to $815.8 million in the first half of 2026, so Coinbase accounted for about 80 per cent of them.

USDC is less than half the size of Tether’s USDT

Circle reported $75.2 billion of USDC in circulation as of 24 September 2026, backed by $75.5 billion of reserves, on its transparency page. Tether reported $183.7 billion of USDT in circulation at 23:30 UTC on 27 September, about 2.4 times as much. The same Circle page shows USDC in circulation up $1.2 billion over the past 365 days.

CNBC reported that the agreement “signals a push to expand USDC beyond its historically U.S.-focused base and compete more directly with stablecoin giant Tether in international crypto markets”. Allaire said the two companies see opportunities to use USDC to “reach people and businesses throughout global emerging markets”. Our guide to Tether and USDC sets out how the two coins differ.

Binance once converted its users’ USDC away

In September 2022 Binance announced that it would automatically convert users’ USDC balances into BUSD, its own branded stablecoin, one for one, from 29 September 2022. Fortune called Circle Binance’s “one-time rival” in its report on the new deal.

The two companies signed a partnership in November 2024, and Circle’s release of 11 December 2024 said Binance would make USDC “more extensively available” to its more than 240 million users and adopt it for its own corporate treasury. The new five-year agreement replaces those arrangements.

Circle’s shares barely moved on the news

Circle’s shares closed at $94.59 on 22 September 2026, the day of the announcement, up 0.1 per cent on the previous close, according to Nasdaq. CNBC reported that they had risen more than 1 per cent before the market opened. They had risen 7.9 per cent on 18 September, the day after the deal closed.

At the 25 September close Binance’s stake was worth about $110.1 million, a paper gain of about $10.1 million on the $100 million it paid. The lock-up holds those shares until 17 September 2028 at the latest, and the promotion deal runs for five years from 17 September 2026.