Circle, the issuer of the USDC stablecoin, generated about $1.4 billion in revenue in the first half of 2026 and paid or allocated most of it to distribution partners, transaction costs and infrastructure. Circle published the figures amid discussions about stablecoin revenue sharing, arguing that infrastructure investment is necessary for stablecoins to be used in global payments.

Of the total, Circle paid distribution partners and allocated to transaction costs $819 million, or 59%. It spent another $473 million on licenses, banking infrastructure, liquidity, compliance and product development, while net profit was about 7% of revenue.

Circle shares USDC revenue

Circle said onchain USDC transaction volume exceeded $36 trillion in the first half of 2026. During the period, the company issued and redeemed more than $315 billion in stablecoins, averaging about $1.7 billion a day, including weekends and holidays.

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

The company said it already shares most of USDC’s economic benefit with partners that support its distribution. Platforms that attract and retain stablecoin balances receive a share of reserve revenue, with their potential share increasing as they bring in more USDC.

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

Arc launched on mainnet on Sept. 16, with BlackRock, Visa and Mastercard among its validators. In September, Binance also entered a five-year commercial agreement with Circle and invested $100 million in the company.

Circle estimates that more than 150 partners have an economic interest in USDC’s development. The network includes exchanges, wallets, neobanks, financial-technology companies, payment platforms, banks and enterprises.

Circle said it reinvests most of the funds remaining after partner payouts in infrastructure. Such spending totaled about $473 million in the first half, equal to 34 cents of every dollar of revenue, while net profit was about 7 cents per dollar.

Redemptions and infrastructure costs

Circle said its customers have always been able to redeem USDC without charge through standard banking rails, with settlement typically completed within two business days. It now also offers free, near-real-time redemptions around the clock when customers use the Circle Payments Network, or CPN, or relevant Circle Platform products.

The company announced the Circle Payments Network for stablecoin settlement in April 2025.

Circle redeemed $71.8 billion in USDC in the first quarter of 2026, equivalent to about 90% of the stablecoin’s circulating supply at the time. Combined issuance and redemption volume reached $170 billion in the second quarter, up 105% year over year.

The company said fast settlement requires substantial cash buffers at partner banks so funds can be transferred immediately after an onchain redemption is confirmed. Maintaining that liquidity, including outside banking hours, creates additional costs that Circle does not charge to customers using the relevant network services.

Circle said the infrastructure it has built over more than eight years includes more than 55 licenses and registrations, including compliance with the Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation, and partnerships with more than 25 banks. It also cited reserves held in a government money market fund managed by BlackRock, custody at BNY, 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 that it must reinvest part of its revenue to support USDC’s reliability and accessibility.

Circle said USDC began in 2018 as a consortium project. The company took full control of the stablecoin in 2023 and rebuilt the model, emphasizing the issuer’s ability to invest in infrastructure.

Circle has also launched USDC loans backed by bitcoin collateral in Circle Mint.

Source: Incrypted