Circle USYC

What it is

USYC is a tokenised money market fund, a familiar piece of traditional finance rebuilt as a token. Each USYC is the on-chain representation of a share in the Hashnote International Short Duration Yield Fund Ltd., a Cayman Islands registered fund that invests in US Treasury bills and reverse repurchase agreements. Hashnote, an institutional asset manager backed by the Chicago trading firm DRW, created the product; Circle, the company behind the USDC stablecoin, bought Hashnote in January 2025 and now runs USYC as its institutional yield offering. At the time of the acquisition Circle described USYC as the largest tokenised treasury and money market fund in the world.

How it works

The fund lends into the overnight repo market, short-term lending secured against US government securities, and holds Treasury bills directly. Yield is not paid out as interest. Instead the token’s price rises as the fund earns, which is why USYC trades near $1.13 rather than $1. Access is restricted to vetted institutional holders, with onboarding checks and approved wallet addresses, rather than the general public. Circle International Bermuda Limited acts as token administrator, and Circle has built near-instant convertibility between USYC and USDC, so an institution can switch between a yield-bearing fund share and a spendable stablecoin at any hour, including weekends.

The story so far

Hashnote built USYC for professional trading firms that wanted collateral that earns while it sits, and adoption came first from derivatives desks and exchanges. The fund expanded beyond Ethereum, reaching the privacy-focused Canton Network in October 2024 and Solana under Circle’s ownership. The January 2025 acquisition came with a strategic partnership with DRW’s crypto trading arm, Cumberland, pairing USDC with USYC as yield-bearing collateral, and Circle has said it intends to bring the fund under its existing Bermuda digital assets licence. The pattern since has been steady growth as more venues accept tokenised fund shares in place of idle cash.

Where it stands

As of late July 2026, USYC ranks about 30th among crypto assets tracked by CoinGecko, at roughly $3.0 billion, which keeps it ahead of BlackRock’s rival BUIDL fund at about $2.6 billion. The tokenised Treasury race is now one of the liveliest corners of the market, and USYC’s edge is its plumbing into USDC, the second-largest stablecoin. Worth watching from here: how quickly exchanges and clearing venues adopt fund tokens as collateral, whether the fund’s assets keep growing as interest rates move, and how competition with BUIDL and Ondo’s USDY develops. Our crypto explainers hub covers the wider crypto market context.