Binance buys $100 million Circle stake and renews five-year USDC deal

Binance takes a $100 million stake in Circle and extends its USDC deal

Binance bought $100 million of Circle stock and signed a five-year agreement to promote USDC, a stablecoin designed to hold a value of one US dollar. The companies announced the move on Tuesday, Sept. 22, 2026.

Under the deal, Circle will keep paying Binance a monthly incentive fee tied to USDC balances, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the regulator that oversees public companies. Circle has paid Binance to carry USDC since 2024, and the new agreement continues those payments.

Key numbers from the deal

• $100 million: the amount Binance paid for Circle shares.
• 1,237,011: Class A common shares issued to Binance at $80.84 each.
• 5%: the discount to Circle's $85.09 closing price on Sept. 17.
• 0.5%: the stake's size relative to Circle's shares outstanding.
• Five years: the length of the new USDC agreement.
• $152.1 million: the rise in Circle's Binance-related distribution costs in 2025 from the year before.
• 84%: the share of Binance's first-week stock trading volume that came from emerging markets in June.
• $74.58 billion: USDC's market value at the time of writing, per CoinGecko.

How the share purchase was structured

Circle issued 1,237,011 Class A common shares at $80.84 each in a private placement that closed on Sept. 17, the SEC filing shows. CRCL, Circle's stock ticker, closed that day at $85.09, which put the purchase price at a five percent discount.

Binance cannot sell, pledge or hedge the shares for two years, or until it terminates the commercial arrangements under certain circumstances, whichever comes first. It keeps its voting rights throughout that period.

CRCL traded at $94.64 at 10:15 a.m. ET on Tuesday, up 0.16% on the day. The stock has gained 11% since the Sept. 17 close that set Binance's purchase price, which values the stake at about $117 million against the $100 million paid. The shares have traded between $49.90 and $159.47 over the past year.

A monthly fee tied to USDC held through Circle's wallet infrastructure

Circle subsidiaries agreed to pay Binance a monthly incentive fee equal to a percentage of the USDC held through Circle's Modular Smart Contract Wallet infrastructure service. Binance agreed to promote USDC on its platform. Circle did not disclose the percentage.

Modular Wallets are smart contract accounts built to the Modular Smart Contract Accounts standard, according to Circle's developer documentation. That standard lets a business customize how an account works through modules.

The agreement runs for five years, and either side can end it early under specified events.

What Circle and Binance said

Jeremy Allaire, co-founder, chairman and chief executive of Circle, said the two companies see opportunities to use USDC to expand access to dollars and to reach people and businesses in emerging markets.

Richard Teng, co-chief executive of Binance, described the $100 million investment and five-year commitment as long-duration conviction.

The new agreement replaces two earlier deals

The new arrangements supersede and replace agreements Circle signed with Binance in November 2024 and August 2025.

Under the November 2024 deal, Circle paid Binance a $60.3 million one-time upfront fee and agreed to monthly incentive fees based on USDC balances on Binance's platform and in its treasury. Binance agreed to promote USDC and hold USDC in treasury. It agreed to keep 3 billion USDC in treasury, subject to certain exceptions, with incentive fees payable only while it held at least 1.5 billion, according to Circle's IPO prospectus. That treasury arrangement ran two years.

The August 2025 deal covered the Modular Smart Contract Wallet service and ran four years with a one-year tail. The agreement announced Tuesday covers the same service and runs five years. Circle's filing describes the promotional and fee terms and does not address the treasury holding.

What Circle pays to distribute USDC

Circle's distribution costs related to Binance rose $152.1 million in 2025 from the year before, alongside a $438.4 million increase in payments to Coinbase, according to Circle's annual report.

Circle paid Coinbase $655.3 million in the first six months of 2026 and reported $819.3 million in total distribution, transaction and other costs over that period, its second-quarter report shows.

Why emerging markets sit at the center of the partnership

The agreement targets emerging markets, and Binance draws much of its equities activity from the same regions. Emerging markets supplied 84% of first-week volume when the exchange opened stock trading in June.

Where USDC and Circle's other projects stand

USDC had a market value of $74.58 billion on $22.84 billion of 24-hour volume, per CoinGecko.

Circle launched its Arc layer 1 mainnet on Sept. 16, with BlackRock, DTCC and Visa among the founding validators. This week it opened bitcoin-backed USDC borrowing to Circle Mint clients through Morpho. Binance is one of 12 exchanges Circle named as providing access to Arc.

What is confirmed

• Binance bought $100 million of Circle stock, and the two companies signed a five-year agreement to promote USDC.
• Circle issued 1,237,011 Class A shares at $80.84 each in a private placement that closed on Sept. 17, according to an SEC filing.
• Circle subsidiaries will pay Binance a monthly incentive fee based on USDC held through Circle's Modular Smart Contract Wallet infrastructure.
• The new agreement replaces those signed in November 2024 and August 2025.

What is still unclear

The filing does not disclose the percentage used to calculate the monthly incentive fee. It also does not say whether Binance must continue holding a set amount of USDC in treasury, a condition that existed in the November 2024 arrangement.

Sources

• The Defiant

Read also: Three crypto banks get conditional federal approval but still face major hurdles

Read also: Six Canadian Banks Explore Shared Tokenized Deposit System

Read also: Manifund loses Centre for Effective Altruism platform after hiring Caroline Ellison